A short drive from the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif lies the mountainous district of Balkh. Ajmal, a 23-year-old student, is paying for his impending wedding and his studies by renting out small plots of land to farmers. They use it to grow hashish among maize plantations.
“Opium is gold but hashish is silver,” he said, quoting a well-known saying that goes back a few years to when the provincial governor got serious about eliminating opium, which inspired farmers to make the switch from one illicit crop to another. “No one is scared to grow charas [hash] but if your whole field is full of it, there may be problems. So you need to grow it carefully and spread it around.”
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