The US Institute for Peace [USIP] is a federal agency in Washington, DC. It has a massive office building on Constitution Ave and a $55 million yearly budget. It is supposed to advise the Pentagon and the US State Department.
The agency denounced the Taliban for waging a “remarkably successful” war on opium and ephedra. Without a hint of shame or irony, they claim this is “bad for the world.”
The agency says the Taliban has carried out their second successful ban on opium production. The first was in 2001, before the US invasion. They say that the ban will harm the Afghan people because it is an important source of revenue. USIP also says it will be bad for European drug addicts because drug dealers will use more adulterants without access to cheap Afghan heroin.
The USIP cites a detailed report by Alcis on the Taliban’s eradication of opium cultivation, ephedra cultivation, and ephedra-based methamphetamine production. Alcis uses satellite imagery and other data to demonstrate that the Taliban has achieved great success in a tiny amount of time in fighting opiates and methamphetamine.
