As if Coca-Cola gave up making soft drinks, the Taliban announced to great fanfare last year that they were getting out of the drug business. The group that rode big opium profits to a takeover of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 suddenly, seemingly, swore off the stuff. Poppy planting was banned and drugs were off the menu. Or that, at least, is what they want the world to believe. sources: https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/afghanistan/340-trouble-afghanistans-opium-fields-taliban-war-drugs https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/13/taliban-afghanistan-drugs-ban-economy-opium-poppy-meth-heroin-trade/ https://museum.dea.gov/exhibits/online-exhibits/cannabis-coca-and-poppy-natures-addictive-plants/opium-poppy chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.unodc.org/pdf/report_2001-06-26_1/analysis_afghanistan.pdf chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/resources/taliban_opium_1.pdf https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-49404024 https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-afghanistan BUY MY COFFEE IT’S DELICIOUS https://tablowroastingco.com/products/stakuyi-lewis-dark Travel with me to turkey https://trovatrip.com/trip/europe/turkey/turkey-with-steven-bell-sep-2025 Subscribe to my channels and let me know what more you would like to see. We organize games through discord: https://discord.gg/BJsRA6UpXx Twitch https://twitch.tv/stakuyi Podcast: https://historyofeverythingpodcast.com/