When the Taliban ordered Afghanistan’s fields cleared of opium poppies seven years ago because of Islam’s ban on drugs, fearful farmers complied en masse. Today, officials say, the militia nets tens of millions by forcing farmers to plant poppies and taxing the harvest, driving the country’s skyrocketing opium production to fund the fight against what they consider an even greater evil — U.S. and NATO troops…. Corrupt government officials, both low-level police and high-level leaders, also protect the drug trade in exchange for bribes, a recent U.N. report found. Warlords and major landowners welcome the instability the Taliban bring to the country’s southern regions, causing poppy eradication efforts to fail. (MSNBC ^[1], Wednesday)

Blowback from prohibition.

FEE Timely Classic
The Re-legalization of Drugs ^[2] by Tibor R. Machan and Mark Thornton