After using the opium trade to fund decades of war, in April the Taliban announced a ban across the country on the cultivation of poppies. “We are committed to bringing poppy cultivation to zero,” Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor told the Associated Press last week. Those violating the ban will reportedly be arrested and tried according to Sharia law and Taliban forces have already begun destroying poppy fields. Cultivation of the plant has a long history in Afghanistan; Alexander the Great is said to have introduced opium to the country in 330 BC and it was cultivated over the las…