In July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the UN to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. The Taliban enforced a ban on poppy farming via threats, forced eradication, and public punishment of transgressors. The result was a 99% reduction in the area of opium poppy farming in Taliban-controlled areas, roughly three quarters of the world's supply of heroin at the time. The ban was effective only briefly due to the deposition of the Taliban in 2002. Before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, there were around 189,000 heroin users in the United States. By 2016, that figure increased to 4.5 million —an estimated 2.5 million heroin addicts and 2 million casual users. Opium production in Afghanistan increased by 87 per cent to a record level of 9,000 metric tons in 2017...The area under opium poppy cultivation also increa...
