The Taliban regime in Afghanistan revealed this week that it has contracted a company called Cpharm to grow and manufacture cannabis products.
Social media posts from the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs said that a company called Cpharm agreed to make an investment worth more than $400 million to set up a cannabis production factory in Afghanistan.
According to reports, an Australian company by the name of Cpharm denied working with the Taliban. The Taliban later said they are working separately with a German company.
“We have become aware overnight of numerous media articles stating that Cpharm in Australia has been involved in a deal with the Taliban to be involved in the supply of cannabis in a cream,” a press release said from Cpharm.
“We DO NOT manufacturer or supply anything. We provide a medical advice service to the pharmaceutical industry within Australia. We have no products on the ARTG. We have no connection with cannabis or the Taliban. We have no idea where the Taliban media release has come from and want to assure everyone that it should not be connected to Cpharm Pty Ltd Australia.”
Qari Saeed Khosty, a spokesperson for the Taliban, which seized power from the Afghan government this summer following the U.S. military withdrawal, tweeted on Thursday to clarify that the deal was instead with a German company also called CPharm.
The project “will be officially launched soon and hundreds of people will get job opportunities,” the ministry said in a tweet.
The Ministry of Interior Affairs tweeted, “Yesterday, the Deputy Minister for Counter Narcotics, Ministry of Interior Affairs met with a representative of Cpharm Company. Cpharm will invest $450 million in setting up a hashish-processing company in Afghanistan.”
They went on to say, “Medicines and creams would be manufactured by the hashish-processing factory. The project will be officially launched soon and hundreds of people will get job opportunities on the project.”
