Along similar lines, the Taliban outlawed poppy plants and burned down most of the fields right before 9/11 (95% of of pharmaceutical opiates come from Afghanistan, this would have bankrupted pharma companies)
WTF? Afghanistan isn't a supplier of legal poppy products for pharmaceuticals. The legal suppliers are India, Turkey, Spain, Australia, and France. The big pharmaceutical companies rely on patent protection to make money on medications. Once patent protection expires and generics enter the market, profit margins collapse and they have to find new drugs to patent. None of the natural or semi-synthetic medicinal chemicals derived from poppies are under patent or were under patent when the Taliban consolidated control of Afghanistan.