Afghanistan will be Asia's first narco-state

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

50% : Extracting ephedrine from the plant is easier than extracting it from over-the-counter medicines, which have to be imported from Iran or Pakistan, and it requires only a basic knowledge of chemistry.
50% : The Taliban will also control access to regional transport links, such as the highway to Chabahar port in Iran and the International North-South Transportation Corridor to Central Asia, Iran, Russia, and Europe.
36% : The Taliban won't be doing anything revolutionary: North Korean diplomats reportedly have sold drugs in Europe and engaged in wildlife smuggling, and Iran used its central bank to finance its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.