Has the Taliban successfully enforced a ban on opium cultivation?

Yogita LimayeAfghanistan correspondent Prior to the Taliban supreme leader’s diktat in 2022 banning the cultivation of opium poppy, Afghanistan used to produce more than 80% of the world’s opium. In 2023, after the ban was implemented, cultivation fell by 95% according to the United Nations. We travelled to Helmand and Kandahar, which at the time were some of the biggest producers of opium, to find that the ban had been strictly enforced. We were also given access to a patrol in the Nangarhar pr