KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - MARCH 18: Blooming poppy crops are being destroyed by farmers and authorities due to the ban at a poppy field in Kandahar, Afghanistan on March 18, 2023. Taliban administration has also banned the cultivation of hemp across the country after the opium poppy was banned in April 2022. Taliban security personnel destroyed a poppy field in Dand district of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. Kandahar state officials said hundreds of acres of land had been cleared from poppy fields after the state banned poppy cultivation. A few days ago, the anti-narcotics officials of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, who travel to the provinces to implement the orders of the Taliban leadership on drugs, said in Kandahar that in the past year, they conducted 3,700 anti-narcotics operations during which 4,650 drug criminals were arrested and 148 alcohol and other drug factories were destroyed. Anti-narcotics officials stated that they seized 404 tons of various drugs and cleared 1,147 hectares of land from drug cultivation by decree of the Taliban leadership. Mohammad Noori / Anadolu Agency/ABACAPRESS.COM