MONITORING (SW) – Days after the blanket ban on the cultivation, use and sale of all sorts of narcotics, the prices of poppy have sharply in the southern provinces of the country.
A number of opium addicts in Uruzgan and Kandahar provinces say that the price of 0 has doubled compared to the past.
According to them, the price of a kilogram of opium used to be 8,000 afghanis, but now the price of a kilogram of opium is 16,000 afghanis or 32,000 Pakistani rupees. They added that the price of a kilogram of ready opium in the past was 13,000 afghanis, but now it has reached 25,000 afghanis.
Abdul Baqi (a pseudonym) runs an opium business in Kandahar. “Since yesterday, when opium was banned, its price has risen,” he told Salam Watandar. “In the past, a good kilogram of good opium was sold for 70,000 to 80,000 Pakistani rupees, but now the price has risen to 150,000 to 160,000 rupees. The price of a kilogram of raw opium used to be 25,000 rupees and now it has reached 50,000 rupees.”
The price of raw and cooked opium has doubled in Uruzgan province as well.
An opium smuggler, who did not want to be named, told Salam Watandar that the price of narcotics was not fixed and that the price would rise if poppy cultivation was actually banned.
Although poppy farmers in the southern provinces are happy with the increase in opium prices, but they ask the Islamic Emirate to provide them with alternative cultivation. “We are very pleased with the increase in opium prices, but the Islamic Emirate has announced that it will no longer allow us to cultivate opium,” Habibaullah, a Kandahari farmer, told Salam Watandar. “The Islamic Emirate must first find alternative cultivation for us, then ban the cultivation of opium. In this drought, nothing but opium can meet the costs of living.”
Earlier this month, Hebatullah Akhundzadeh, the supreme leader of the Islamic Emirate, has issued a new decree banning poppy cultivation and any intoxicants throughout Afghanistan.
The decree states that from the date of its issuance, poppy cultivation is “absolutely prohibited throughout the country and no one can try to cultivate it.”
The leader of the Islamic Emirate has said that if anyone violates this decree, his cultivation will be destroyed and the violator will be dealt with according to Islamic law.
According to Hebatullah Akhundzada’s decree, the use and transfer, purchase, sale, import and export, and factories producing any intoxicants such as wine, heroin, tablet-K, cannabis, etc. are strictly prohibited throughout the country.
The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Emirate has emphasized that the implementation of this decree is necessary and if anyone opposes it, he will be prosecuted and punished by the judiciary.
ENDS
