As Afghanistan enforces a near-total poppy ban, Pakistan’s Balochistan emerges as the new center of a resurgent opium economy. State complicity, militant financing, and expanding trafficking routes now threaten to reshape the drug landscape of South and West Asia.

The collapse of Afghanistan’s opium economy under the Taliban has set off an unexpected and dangerous shift across the border. After the Taliban seized Kabul in August 2021, they moved quickly to impose a strict nationwide ban on poppy cultivation in April 2022, enforcing it aggressively across the country. Opium production in Afghanistan fell dramatically as a result. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported that cultivation dropped from 233,000 hectares in 2022 to just 10,800 hectares in 2023, a staggering decline of 95 percent, while production fell from roughly 6,200 tonnes to 333 tonnes during the same period. This remarkable reduction has not eliminated the regional drug economy; instead, it has pushed the centre of gravity into Pakistan’s Balochistan province, where poppy cultivation has surged at an unprecedented rate.

Balochistan’s rising opium economy

A recent investigation by the Financial Times revealed that Pakistan has now emerged as one of the world’s biggest suppliers of opium, with Balochistan turning into a thriving production hub as Afghan stockpiles dwindle. Senior figures in the insurgency-hit province, especially those operating near the Afghan border, warn that Balochistan is rapidly becoming a major node of the global opium chain – with severe social, economic, and security implications for Pakistan and the wider region.

Islamabad insists that it is responding firmly to this growth. The Anti-Narcotics Force, local police units, and provincial authorities have all announced major crackdowns on poppy cultivation and drug dens. These operations have reportedly been launched on the instructions of the army chief and the provincial government. Yet the situation on the ground suggests a far more troubling reality.

According to interviews and testimonies documented by international and Pakistani media outlets, as well as field reporting by organizations such as the

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