Want any more proof that Afghanistan is lost? No? Well too bad because the opium poppy production is going gangbusters. Literally record crops.
I talk more about this craziness here.
UPDATE:
From the the comments section…
The crop could and should be bought at the grower level. The farmers in Afghanistan will make maybe $ 2.5-3 billion for their crop selling to gangsters and terrorists. We could easily buy it from the farmers at a competitive premium and divert it to the poorest countries in the world that are are under-served in pain medication today.
A European drug policy/human rights group, the Senlis Council, that had offices in Kabul, proposed this in the spring. In September the U.S. drug warriors had the Afghans kick Senlis Council out of the country.
The Senlis Council’s website bears this out, as they describe the ins and outs of Opium Licensing.
I think it’s a good idea, and could have the potential to help save Afghanistan from the Taliban…again. And I don’t think that telling the American people that we’re buying these crops in order to make medicine would be a hard sell.
And just in case you think this is all nonsense, Turkey does something similar and it’s tolerated by the US…
The Turkish experience has several parallels to the present situation in Afghanistan as in the 1960s Turkey was one of the world’s main illegal opium producing countries. Faced with significant drug consumption problems, the US demanded complete eradication, disregarding Turkey’s domestic political situation. Emphasising the political weight of the 70,000 poppy farming families, Turkish Prime Minister Demirel deemed that “eradication would create a clash between the government forces and the people, and would make the problem worse, since eradication would create public support for plantings� (April 1970). Years of intense negotiations ultimately resulted in Turkey successfully switching to poppy licensing. The United States continues to support the Turkish poppy industry through a bilateral preferential trade agreement known as the 80/20 rule.
It sounds like a common sense idea.
What do you think?