‘Every part is useful’: the man who wants Afghanistan to swap opium for hemp

Oil from the versatile plant makes cannabis medicine CBD and its fibre has a range of uses but the Taliban need convincing

The smell seemed unmistakable, the dried buds looked familiar and the Taliban checkpoint guards, who had never heard of CBD, a non-psychoactive cannabis compound, were disgusted by the pungent cargo of Amin Karim's truck.

They said to me: Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Haji?'" using an honorific for an older man, as they poked through the piles of hemp headed for Kabul last October.