Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
 [ColonelCassad] After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, opium production decreased by 95%.
| It was their opium, or grown under their protection before, when they were the unloyal opposition, as it were. They were so efficient the market was saturated and their warehouse stuffed full, so shutting things down until all that was used up just makes sense. |
A report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime shows that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has declined from 233,000 hectares at the end of 2022 to 10,800 thousand in 2023. Opium production has similarly fallen from 6,200 tons to 333 tons this year.
The estimated volume of heroin exported this year is 24-38 tons, compared to 350-580 tons last year.
But the UN is not happy about it: the organization says the sudden contraction of Afghanistan's opium economy will lead to potential "humanitarian consequences for many vulnerable rural communities" as producers are forced to turn to much less profitable alternative crops.
| They weren’t let to switch crops, before, because the Taliban wanted the income to finance their little insurrection. And now, when they can switch, we’re to feel sorry for them because they won’t make as much from buyers who won’t think to cut off their heads for imagined insubordination? |
Farm incomes, estimated at $1.36 billion in 2022, fell 92% this year to $110 million, according to the UN, and the losses are expected to have a wider impact on the country's already struggling economy.
We don’t know how it is at the UN, but we at the editorial office know for sure: drugs are evil.
https://t.me/pezdicide/3279 - zinc
As soon as the Americans were removed, the production of heroin without the main beneficiaries of drug trafficking collapsed.
It was exactly the same on the eve of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, when the Taliban set records for reducing the production of narcotic raw materials.The Taliban have a plus in their karma - they basically keep one of their main promises.
| Sure. The Taliban force production, then enforce cessation, thus increasing profits in both directions. |
This directly concerns us, since a significant part of this flow came through Central Asia to Russia. The Taliban need to retrain peasants for agricultural crops, which China, Russia and Iran have long been offering them.
| So did the Americans, as I recall, but the Taliban lived among them, with knives to their necks. |
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