A cheaper fix

Opium prices in Afghanistan tell a sorry story

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How about legalizing Opium growth in Afghanistan, as long as the Opium is regulated and only used in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. The benefits would be three fold. One the farmers could grow whatever crop is most financially rewarding without risk of government seizure. Afghanistan could itself eventually become a manufacturing core for morphine, codeine and other derivatives of opium creating more jobs. And thirdly the world's price of prescription morphine would decrease providing much needed medication to many people who now can't afford it. As I understand it the only reason this has not been done is because certain countries in Europe are now responsible for a large portion of morphine manufacturing and they are wary of increased competition in their markets, thus they advocate for a complete destruction of Afghan poppies instead of harnessing the poppies for a profitable (for the Afghans)medicinal business venture.

Bob Loblaw

The taboo argument over reaching. Today kids (teens- college) recongize the danger but it makes no difference. Just look at the massive use of "Pharms" for recreation. The number of people using doctor prescribed medicines for recreation (and performance... adderal) is increasing, and it is not increasing in a taboo manor. Quite the opposite in fact. Pharms are seen as okay because they are legal for some people to take. A simliar movement would occur if you could go down to your local drug store and pick up cocaine. In our overly cautious culture, where we are warned about everything, we have created a culture that says, their is no warning so it must be okay.

My solution for the war on drugs: Decriminalize usage (no jail for using) and increase punishment for distributing.

Ian Sof

With a shortage of morphine in the world (especially throughout Africa), why do we not promote poppy cultivation and let drug companies buy the harvest? This would drive the price of narcotics up, provide cheap morphine, and benefit the poor farmers throughout the Middle East.

Decriminalizing drug use is too sensative and volatile an issue, so why do we not start talking about other solutions to the problem?


The Afghans are cultivating poppies for opium because they're not allowed to export much else: during the war they lost their markets nearby, and EU or US won't buy anything from them due to existing regulations.Cultivating poppies for opium is a lot more expensive, because of manual labor requirements, than cultivating wheat, maize or most of the other legal crops. Let Afghanistan trade foodstuff, stop "compensating" exports of agricultural products to Afghanistan and opium will dwindle to almost nothing: the Brits produced opium and sold it to China because of similar trade restrictions before and after the Opium Wars -- China either had huge taxes on most goods Europe could export and the rest were simply banned from sale in the few ports the Europeans were allowed to trade.

Brian MM

These statistics seem to re-inforce my view that the sooner we de-criminalise drugs and the use of them the better. Then drug prices would fall a great deal further, the criminals would lose interest in it.
All the money and lives we spend on our currently ineffectual fight against the drug trade could then be spent on regulating it, taxing it, and repairing the damge that is done by it.
Look how the tobacco trade has been reduced in the UK, just by publishing clearly how smoking kills. Alcohol kills too, and bottles should have a similar message on them too.


Lol. Legalize the stuff. Eliminate the black market. I can see the headlines..."Opium Legalized! Crime Plummets! Drug Dealers Unemployed!"But see, the men in charge don't want a victory in the drug war. Beyond the fact that it is an impossible objective, It creates massive amounts of revenue for politicians, wall street and the prison industrial complex. Bottom line, more criminals, more prisoners, more money.


@ Alex in DC,

Alex, I am sure you are aware that not only is the Taliban producing and selling opium to fund it's Jihad, but the rate of opium addiction in Afghanistan has steadily increased since the Taliban's resurgence in and around Afghanistan, especially Kabul. "Peace be upon them"? Really? They are destroying Afghanistan and need to leave or die. What the country needs is the infrastructure it had prior to the Soviet invasion, at least; irrigation canals, power lines, and health care. All of which are being hindered by your Taliban friends. I suggest you go to Afghanistan and ask some of the southern tribesmen what they want and need. More opium and the Taliban will not be on the list.

Patrick in Denver

Alcohol causes more deaths than all other drugs combined. Legalizing heroin/opium (whatever you want to call it) would be catastrophic. Kids typically start with drugs like alcohol because it is available and then move onto almost legal drugs like Marijuana. Some clean up and go with their lives. Some go on to become junkies. The ones that have the genetic/mental predisposition towards heavy drug abuse would get there faster, and it would be uglier in light of intervention because "it is okay." I have never met a social junkie, people that smoke opium or shoot heroin to "relax on the weekend." They are the underbelly of society because addiction drives them from normal relationships which comprise people's daily lives. Legalizing drugs would not change the nature of an addict, it would change tax income and the ability for society to “help addicts.” Furthermore, just look at Austin Higgins or Elliott Wallace who both died from heroin/opium almost exactly 7 years ago.


How many acres even produces a Kilogram of dry opium? How soon before something like Soya is more profitable than opium?


Most working police officers (not the brass) support legalizing anything that can be grown in one's living room or back yard. Poppies, marijuana, and I suppose the coca plant, will grow just about any place. People don't grow their own tobacco because it is difficult to grow and process. Legalize the green vegetable matter and their will be no corruption because people who want it will grow it as house plants. Or in the stores it will be priced about the same as out of season blue berries.That being said, no sane person wants to have children or adults messing with dangerous chemicals in the neighborhoods. For that reason the artificial drugs should still be controlled.


The solution to illegal opium trade from Afghanistan is to legalise the drug. This would keep the farmers on-side and be fair to them and would cut out the Taliban.


Cognate,I agree with you on principle. True, decriminalization of drugs would open new markets for drug companies, allow research of new medicines, and employ thousands of pharmacists and chemical engineers. It is also true that street value of non-medicinal uses of the drugs would drop tremendously, as a result of drug companies expanding vertically and eliminating a system in which hierarchies of both well-organized mafias and ordinary street pushers that inflate prices in order for each middleman to make a cut of enough profits to make it worth their while. A sales tax could fill the void, allowing the government to actually make money off of public drug use, instead of footing a bill of 50-60k a year to keep someone locked up in prison that hasn't committed a violent crime, and spending absurd amounts on a war on drugs that has statistically promoted drug use in adolescents.However, the flaw in the traditional libertarian standby issue is that if left without strict regulation, a decriminalized drug market leaves a scary window for immense corruption. The current international prison gangs and drug exporting companies that profit off of the drug trade are likely to figure out the political lobbying game and monopolistic potential in today's capitalist economies and still figure out a way to run the show just as they do now."Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue." - Barry Goldwater


to obrijano,

It was from the beginning a mistake of US foreign policy.
USA invaded afganistan because of osama.
Osama is a creature developped by US foreigh policy in Palestine where USA have been oppressing palestinian people, killing and torturing, by providing arms and finance to Israel, if not directly but indirectly. The deepest cause of osama is palestine continually occupied by Israel despite international accusations.
US foreign policy has been alwasy dictated by Israel and Jewish lobby and their money for election as well as by neocon, as far as the middle-east is concerned, but only since JFK era.

you are absolutely right to ask


the answer is US( Israel)governments.

but your Jewish lobby and money will not listen to it.

James Della Bella

When the Taliban was in power they had reduced Afghanistan's opium production to 5% of the worlds total opium output, while today under Karzai, former employee of "Big Oil" and as per an article in last weeks New York Times he is an obstacle to crop eradication and his cabinet and family have been implicated in dealing themselves, Afghanistan is producing 92% of the worlds opium. When one put Afghanistan's history and current situation into perspective it is quite obvious who is behind getting it out Afghanistan, the U.S. military. There are "American Gangsters" right now making fortunes in the opium trade, funding covert operations, and enriching themselves in the process. One might say we went into Afghanistan more to get our rightful cut of the opium trade. History shows that every time money on this scale is involved all try to cash in, whether it be Iran/Contra (read Senators Kerry report "the Kerry report, or as far back as Delano Roosevelt, grandfather of Franklin, made his fortune pushing opium on the Chinese triggering the boxer rebellion, as Winston Churchill rightly said, "to see the future just look at the past". There are no roads coming in and out of Afghanistan for the locals to traffic it out, the terrain is dangerous and haphazard. The Afghanis have been at war either with themselves, Russia, themselves again, and now with the U.S. for the past 30 years or more. There is no infrastructure in Afghanistan; it just seems hard to swallow that a peoples on the run is able to operate such a logistically complex operation as supplying 92% of the worlds opium. Because the U.S. consumes 90% of the worlds cocaine and only a marginal amount of heroin our domestic interests are relatively unharmed by our actions, however Russia, Asia and the Middle East are getting hammered with heroin addiction problems, so there is benefit, our enemies are strung out on dope. One further piece of evidence was the militarys refusal to assist in crop eradication in Afghanistan even though they do it in Colombia regularly, according to our leaders the drugs are enriching our enemies, if this is true, then how come our military has drastically different policies with regards to the same situation, in theory anyway, but this is not the same situation in Colombia the money gos to cartels and FARC, so the military eradicates crops as its overall strategy against the rebels, but in Afghanistan they claim they are not there to enforce drugs, but they should if the money is being used to rearm themselves. This seems as rational as trying to cut off oil during WWII from our enemies, unless that oil was for out tankers. But who cares, its the same as it always was.


The CIA aided and abetted the production of cocaine in Central and South America during the Iran-Contra scandal. This snorts familiar doesn't it? A war is started, and the 'invader' throws up its hands and says "Aaw shucks maw, we tried n everythang... but them doggone Aff-gun-nay's just like growing that stuff, for crissakes whatcha gonna do"? I don't think we should idly read this by, then walk over to your nearest pusher accept your next government-funded fix. Stop. Drop. Think!


Decriminalizing drugs would pull the rug from under the warlord economy of Afghanistan and elsewhere, bringing peace to those parts of the world. American soldiers could then come home and learn how to do something productive for a living.Drug abuse is a medical, not a criminal matter.


CIA? This is US goverment using military and NATO allies to protect drug production-there are no elements of secrecy here.This is third year of record opiate production and it is a fact that 90% of all of heroin that reaches US soil,and some western states, comes from Afganistan.
For all of us living in the USA here is a question:


Tlalpan: Huh?I can't offhand think of any large society that's existed without drugs since people started drinking alcohol and coffee and smoking tobacco and pot thousands of years ago. It's drug abuse, not drug consumption that's a problem.


Couldn't we use 'aid' to buy up all the crop at the farm gate? This would save ourselves a load of trouble, grief and money in western society and give money to Afghanistan? Probably be cheaper for us overall!



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