The Taliban have launched an impressive new war on drugs

Early this month, the Taliban turned up at Akhtar Mohammad’s farm in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan, wielding sticks. In half an hour they destroyed a field of poppies that had taken the farmer a year to cultivate—leaving Mr Mohammad close to despair. “Now the Taliban have destroyed my opium I demand they feed my children,” he says. “Or I will have to sell one of them to feed the others.”