we weren't allowed to even damage them--no driving through poppie fields for instance--because as you rightly describe---Poppies are politics--if there was a poppie grower or drug trader on the fence as to whether to support/like us or not, we didn't want to give him a reason to dislike us...that has since changed but not, to my understanding, substantively.
So we are in Dae Rawod, we dismount to patrol to this river--we look around and we are in this field of marijuana--huge bushes like 8 feet tall--- I thnk I'll go back there someday ;)