Report on the "expansion" of poppy cultivation in Iran after the ban on opium production in Afghanistan.

Report on the "expansion" of poppy cultivation in Iran after the ban on opium production in Afghanistan.

Analysis of satellite images and interviews with local farmers show that after the Taliban's widespread ban on drug production in 2022, poppy cultivation has "expanded" in Iran and Pakistan's border areas with Afghanistan.

David Mansfield, a British researcher and expert on Afghanistan's drug economy, told Radio Europe Azad/Radio Liberation on Friday, November 1, that the ban on the Taliban, along with increasing instability in the border regions of the three countries, provided conditions for the expansion of poppy cultivation in Pakistan's Balochistan and parts of Iran.

According to him, these border areas have now become one of the "world opium production centers".

According to experts, the increase in poppy cultivation in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan and several other provinces of Iran in recent years is related to the ban on the cultivation of this plant in Afghanistan by the Taliban and the transfer of part of the opium production to neighboring countries. According to this report, a similar pattern was observed in Iran. So a number of Afghan farmers resorted to poppy cultivation in Iran by crossing the border, by renting land or participating in cultivation.

Reports have also been published of the cultivation of this plant in other provinces of Iran, including Razavi Khorasan, Kermansha, Lorestan and Fars.

However, Sistan and Baluchistan is still the main opium producing region in Iran.

Read the full version of the report on the Radio Farda website.