“How could the Taliban expect to succeed where the previous government did not?
They are trying to succeed in a different way. The opium poppy is the key source for many narcotics to include morphine and codeine, major used pain killers by hospitals throughout the world. By banning its production, it will cause pain killer prices to skyrocket and the market won’t sustain it. And as they are the largest poppy farming space in the world by country, it will kill the market.
Ever watched Trading Places and the use of the frozen orange juice concentrate market? Well, watch this,
wy69
None of the opium produced in Afghanistan is used in the legal market for Rx pain killers.
https://www.deamuseum.org/ccp/opium/production-distribution.html
I’m pretty sure that most opiates in the western world are entirely synthetic. Maybe not pure morphine, but hydrocodone/fentanyl, and oxymorphone don’t need natural ingredients.
I could be wrong, but I think that’s the case.