The Taliban have spent their week destroying poppy fields in Afghanistan, causing many to wonder just how a person is supposed to survive in a U.S.-ravaged desert wasteland if they can no longer smoke opium.

According to an article from NPR, Taliban leaders have been destroying the country’s poppy fields in an attempt to cease Afghanistan’s ridiculously huge production of opium and heroin.

If you’re not smoking what we’re growing here, poppy plants contain opium, which is used in the production of painkillers. In addition to being used for opiates, it also has the power to make you lose that custody battle you’ve been fighting so hard.

The Taliban banned the cultivation of poppy plants in April, with Afghani farmers worrying that they’ll be unable to make a living now that their fields are being destroyed.

“If we’re not allowed to cultivate this crop, we will not earn anything,” one farmer told CBS News.

Personally, if we had recently lost our jobs and were strapped for cash, we’d probably recommend striking oil in a country and then creating a thinly-veiled excuse to invade it, but that’s just us.

A spokesperson for the Taliban explained that those found guilty of growing poppy plants will have their crops destroyed and will be tried according to Sharia Law.

Indeed, while America has individuals incarcerated for life for growing a few cannabis plants, perhaps we should count our blessings, since we aren’t losing limbs, getting stoned to death or being beheaded for throwing some seeds in the ground.

“Day laborers can earn upwards of $300 a month harvesting opium from the poppies,” reads the article from CBS, later adding, “The total value of Afghanistan's opiates production in 2021 was $1.8-$2.7 billion, up to 14% of the country's GDP, exceeding the value of its legal exports, the UNODC said in its most recent report.”

We’d tell you we’re shocked that day laborers make $300 a month while Afghanistan's opiate production yields billions of dollars, but after working minimum wage jobs throughout most of our youth, we’ve actually come to expect it.

If you think it’s our turn as a nation to pick up Afghanistan’s slack (after all, isn’t that the least we could do?), think again. Whereas the Taliban have only recently outlawed the poppy plant when they took power over Afghanistan around nine months ago, Americans were way ahead of the curve, outlawing the cultivation of the opium poppy in 1942.

In hindsight, this probably explains why all of our grandfathers are always in bad moods.