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Should Cannabis Production Be Encouraged in Afghanistan?
In some areas of Afghanistan, according to a recent article in the NYT, poppy eradication efforts have led Afghani farmers to begin growing a new crop: cannabis. Matt Eckel, over at FPW, has written a detailed post suggesting that this switch might not be such a bad thing. In fact, he makes the argument that government and military officials should actively encourage the production of cannabis in order to provide “a viable cash crop to the country’s population.”
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4 Responses to “Should Cannabis Production Be Encouraged in Afghanistan?”
Yes, absolutely. Weed is nothing compared to heroin, this would be a step in the right direction.
Personally, I would say ‘yes’
If breweries are an honorable enterprise, then so should growing marijuana be.
The Afghans, first and foremost, need a means to earn an income, and when poppy crops are destoyed, they bitterly turn against those who do it.
What I fear, though, is the reaction here in the US, about how tax dollars are being. spent. Too many still react on a gut level to the subject of weed, instead of reasoned one. Look at out laws!
Well, economics have a voice. If everyone stops growing poppy, the price will go up, creating incentive to grow poppy.
Personally, I think we should buy the poppy/MJ crops directly as part of a gradual plan to transition the agricultural economy to something else. Unfortunately, I don’t think the drug-war absolutists would support such a policy.
Actually, we do. Poppy, anyway. But not with any intention to “transition” it to something else. We buy an awful lot of opium for purely medicinal usage, converted into codeine and morphine and so on. As does the rest of the world. It’s a perfectly legitimate cash crop–until diverted into the black market.