BS: Opium from Afghanistan

Subject: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: Kampervan
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 04:06 PM

O.K. this may be a really naive question.

I understand that we need to cut off the source of dangerous illegal drugs.
But,instead of burning and destroying all of the illegal opium fields, and alienating the farmers, why don't we just buy the crop as a legitimate source of medicinal opiates and turn the farmers into a legal producer of useful medicines?

Maybe I've missed something really obvious, but I could never work it out.

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 04:12 PM

It's been suggested before, and for some reason it was decided it wouldn't work.
No I don't understand why either.

John 'XG'

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: Teribus
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 05:25 PM

To John & Kampervan, you presume quite a number of things:

- That the Afghan farmer has any choice in what he grows
- That the Afghan farmer has the option to sell the crop that he has been ordered to plant to anyone other than those who ordered him to grow it

The incentive for the farmer to do the bidding of those who direct his agricultural endeavours is quite simple and extremely cheap - Do as we say or we will kill your family.

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: artbrooks
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 05:32 PM

(1) There are many synthetic narcotics (eg, oxycodone) that are more effective than opiates. (2) Medical facilities pay a (relatively) low price for narcotics, at least in comparison to the street price. Since addicts cannot purchase narcotics at the lower rate, the profit margin in the illegal trade is much higher, and opium farmers can make more by moving their product into that market.

I guess that the question of whether or not addicts should be allowed to buy lower-cost, legal, narcotics is a separate one.

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 07:54 PM

And that's the answer. Just drop the restrictions, the value of the stuff would fall through the floor, and there wouldn't be much of any reason to grow it.

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Nov 08 - 04:15 AM

The Afghan farmers who grow the poppies get very little for their crop. The money is made by those who collect and refine it, then sell it on.

In Afghanistan the farmers would make far better money growing crops that people could actually eat. Hence the importance of the Kajiki Dam. Get that fixed and the third turbine running and 1.8 million Afghan homes, villages and farms get electricity and the percentage of land served by irrigation systems increases dramatically. A marked improvement to peoples lives that the Taleban want stopped at all cost.

Riginslinger following your plan what happens to the number of "users" now that it is both cheap and legal - does that number go up or down? Who then caters for the existing customers if the number of those growing it drops? If the number of those growing it and refining it drops then supply declines and prices must go up. Far, far too many contradictions.

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: semi-submersible
Date: 29 Nov 08 - 05:24 AM

"Why don't we just buy the crop...?" Yeah, especially with this worldwide shortage of medical opiates I've been hearing about this past year. A May 2007 article "Why 'legalising' Afghan opium for medicine is a non-starter" suggests some obstacles. ("For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." H. L. Mencken, 1880-1956)

If we actually want to deal with these drug problems, I imagine reducing the addict market by valuing youths and other people in precarious circumstances in our neighbourhoods, as important parts of their communities, would be at least as useful as bombing some poor blighters on another continent. I doubt Afghani farmers have much choice what to grow or to whom to deliver it, anyway. If they do try to change things there, it could look dangerously like a threat to the drug operations already using the region as their supply base. More long-term results with less risk to the people when we train judges and send food home with schoolgirls for their families.

To resist corruption we have to act together. For instance, recently international narcotics traffickers seem to have started using Guinea-Bissau as a trans-Atlantic shipping station. Who's got more money: the government of a small and war-scarred West African country, or international drug lords? Can the police, judges, and politicians of that country stop the invasion? Not without substantial help from outside. (European nations whose addicts' money these traffickers are using, would have the most to gain by providing the UN with the resources to help Guinea-Bissau reverse the spate of threats, bribery, corruption, and violence with which the drug trade is trying to grab control of the country. Europe and Africa will both lose big if South American cocaine can land there by the planeload with impunity.)

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: Kampervan
Date: 29 Nov 08 - 05:31 AM

Thanks for the reply Artbrooks. I didn't realise that natural opium derivatives had been superceded by synthetic ones. I guess that answers my original question.

But then can the problem of getting them to grow other crops be solved by the actions that Teribus is suggesting or will the Taliban 'persuade' them to carry on growing poppies?

I must confess to not understanding the political situation out there, but so many countries are putting in so much in the way of money and military and we don't seem to be getting very far.

Do the majority of Afghanis want our help or would they rather we went home? Are we helping the majority in a struggle for freedom or or we trying to impose our ideas of what's good for Afghanistan?

Be interested to hear from people who know rather than relying on the press/government.

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Nov 08 - 09:09 PM

"Riginslinger following your plan what happens to the number of "users" now that it is both cheap and legal - does that number go up or down? Who then caters for the existing customers if the number of those growing it drops? If the number of those growing it and refining it drops then supply declines and prices must go up. Far, far too many contradictions."


          The "users" simply take care of their own problems. Opium then becomes a commodity in what the Republicans laughingly call a "free market economy." If the price goes down, fine--if the price goes up, fine. Why would anybody care as long as their tax dollars weren't being wasted in a hopeless attempt to try to control the stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: gnu
Date: 30 Nov 08 - 04:32 PM

Art... ummm... not quite... oxycontin (or various spellings) is at least one step UNDER morphine. Not better, according to my brother who passed away July 1.

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: JedMarum
Date: 30 Nov 08 - 04:50 PM

oh - I thought from the thread title this was a discussion on a new Mudcat auction item.

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: Barry Finn
Date: 30 Nov 08 - 06:29 PM

He,He,He,He the US getting into the market of growing opium. Remember the "Guns for Coke" deals during the Reagan years? That's all we need, like it or not some of the folks in government would somehow find a way to start a new opiate supply industry.

There's no need to make this into a new 'start up' business when synthetic sources are already used & are better suited for medical purposes.

If you want less drug users demand a war on drugs! There hasn't been a serious war on drugs since the late 60's, early 70's, actually there never was a REAL war on drugs, just a lot of lip service, like the war on poverty. Demand drug education instead of just saying "NO" or keeping inefficent clinics in place that date back to the 60's & just keep the addicts under control & reigned in rather than trying to rehabilate them. Demand that we have available, accessable & affordable rehabe centers to wean junkies off of the posion that the government allows to filter through our borders & start providing some drug therapy with a bit of follow up care. It'd be much cheaper to fund this than what our present drug policy offers now, oh, do we even have a drug policy? Why not, we have every other kind of poliy imaginable now except those that'd be helpful Think how hard it is for a terrorist to fly, ride, float or walk across our borders, if that same technology were applied to drugs there'd be a lot less of it available now.
Enough rant for now.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Dec 08 - 07:09 AM

One has to wonder how much revenue is generated for "the dark forces of evil of government," due to the "war on drugs."

Subject: RE: BS: Opium from Afghanistan
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Dec 08 - 08:43 AM

Pomegranates are a possible alternative crop.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1691091,00.html