Opium for the people: Extraordinary move to legalise poppy crops

[bemildred]

Source: Independent UK

The buds of millions of poppy flowers are swelling across Afghanistan. In the far southern provinces bordering Iran, the harvest will start later this month. By mid- May the fields around British military camps in Helmand will be ringing to the sound of scythes, rather than gunfire.

And this year's opium harvest will almost certainly be the largest ever. In the five years since the overthrow of the Taliban regime, land under cultivation for poppy has grown from 8,000 to 165,000 hectares.

---

The Prime Minister has ordered a review of his counter-narcotics strategy - including the possibility of legalising some poppy production - after an extraordinary meeting with a Tory MP on Wednesday, The Independent on Sunday has learnt. Tobias Ellwood, a backbencher elected less than two years ago, has apparently succeeded where ministers and officials have failed in leading Mr Blair to consider a hugely significant switch in policy.

Supporters of the measure say it would not only curb an illegal drugs trade which supplies 80 per cent of the heroin on Britain's streets, but would hit the Taliban insurgency and help save the lives of British troops. Much of the legally produced drug could be used to alleviate a shortage of opiates for medicinal use in Britain and beyond, they say.

Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2411398.ece

[mike_c]

1. no doubt it would be good for the CIA as well....

eom

[bemildred]

2. I wouldn't think they would like the competition.

Opiates are intrinsicly very cheap products, it would most likely dislocate the world's economy if they were suddenly legalized at this point.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Hmmm... nah

It might hurt the narcotics industry of smugglers, financiers, corrupt officials, drug enforcement and prisons, all of which we would be better off without. But then again prohibition would continue to be enforced in the first world, so that corrtupt franchise would remain intact. Farmers might do better if they could negotiate freely for their crops.

Opium cultivation has managed to survive and prosper for 2,000 years, and the opium trade as a global commodity has prospered right along with it for the last 300 years or so. Legalizing production in afghanistan will not make a huge difference.

[martymar64]

19. Actually its closer to 3500 years.

The Minoans have evidence of opium cultivation. The Seed Pods show up in their artwork.

[bemildred]

20. Kind of an obvious thing.

Probably in use long before it was cultivated, too.

[Warren Stupidity]

21. I won't quibble.

By 900CE it was being grown from the balkans to china, in roughly the same regions it is being cultivated in now, give or take the current state of the stupid crack down. As the present world economy unfolded between 1500 and 1700 it become one of the great commodities of world trade, and has retained that status ever since.

[DBoon]

4. they prefer to keep it illegal

easier to hide the money trail

[Chemical Bill]

23. The CIA needs laws against heroin...

to keep the price up and give them justification to exterminate the competition. Otherwise the CIA would be just another drug handling operation, instead of the largest and most well organized smuggler. Also, or perhaps more importantly, Bank of America et al need the laundering fees from the profits.

Bill

[SoFlaJet]

3. which means

there's gonna be a lot of really good dope-cheap flooding the streets...thank GOD George W Bush defeated the Taliban....wait....oh, he DIDN'T? But I thought...

[olddad56]

5. W wants to make it plentiful so the citizens can stop paying attention.

[Webster Green]

6. Seems like a no brainer..

There's lots of opium in Afghanistan, and a shortage on the world market. Legalize the Afghan production!

The opium poppy is one of nature's greatest gifts to mankind. The dumbass "war on drugs" does no good whatsoever, has ruined countless lives, and should be ended now.

[whistle]

8. And good for the Bush crime family.....

[High Plains]

9. This idea has been floating around for a couple of years.

It was originally proposed by a European drug policy and defense think tank, the Senlis Council. Check it out at http://www.senliscouncil.net

Senlis argues that there is a shortage of opioid pain relievers on the global market, and that the Afghan poppy crop should be licensed and diverted from the black market to the licit medicinal market. The International Narcotics Control Board, however, disagrees on the shortage.

While this proposal makes sense on a lot of levels--doesn't drive the farmers into the hands of the Taliban, reduces the flow of black market dollars to the Taliban, creates cheap medicines--it has been opposed by the US and, up until now, Great Britain because of rigid drug war ideology.

Hmmm, looks like you can have your war on terror or your war on drugs, but not both, at least in Afghanistan...if you want success.

[jaksavage]

10. Drugs are us

This is a turf war
funny that bush wants to keep it in illegal hands
Oh wait, no, now I understand
His family obviously wins when pharmacutical is scarce
and illegal sales are high, cause money is being made
drugs make sheeple .

[Vidar]

18. Nicely put. If they can't patent or steal it, the bush crime family bans

ir. Oh, and welcome to DU.

[hippiechick]

11. ... once it can be harvested, produced and sold by big pharma ...

... which Poppy and pals are on the boards of, it will most surely be legalized and prescribed (or sold OTC), just like MaryJane.

Once they can figure out a way to corner the market and make a shitload of profit, all the previous rules no longer apply.

[daleo]

12. I think the resistance to U.S. and NATO troops would continue anyway

This may be a good idea for other reasons, but I think it is wishful thinking to assume that this will "quell the violence". The people of Afghanistan have never long tolerated the presence of foreign troops. Opium was legal in the 19th century, but British soldiers still died on Afghanistan's plains.

[bemildred]

14. Might dry up some of the funding.

Otherwise, you are right. I have read that a good deal of the Iraqi resistance is funded with "bootleg" Iraqi oil, which may have been part of what the British were looking for when the Iranians grabbed them. Things sure do get all twisted up together.

[daleo]

16. I hadn't heard the bootleg oil story

I think the first version was "smuggling cars to avoid import duties", which seemed a bit odd, given that rockets are falling in the Green Zone on a daily basis. You would think the Royal Navy would be going after bigger things.

Now smuggled car bombs, that would make sense. So would smuggled oil.

[bemildred]

17. I had not heard the oil bit WRT this incident.

Just to be clear; but I had read of it being one of the problems down there, and about it being a funding source for the resistance, a couple times. And I do think it makes a good deal more sense than looking for smuggled cars, although that too was cast in the form that they were going to be used as car bombs, but that seems like bullshit to me.

[AndyTiedye]

13. There's Always Lots of Heroin Around When The Repiggies Are In Power

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

15. Horseshit.

Scything the poppies would be counter-productive.


Best to score (cut) it.

[dysfunctional press]

22. as alongtime opiate user, i can only applaud this action.

btw- mine are prescription, for chronic pain.

[Supersedeas]

24. Another Bushist attempt to declare victory by changing the terms

[Orsino]

25. If Fox News is legal, why not other opiates? n/t