This idea is being promoted by The Senlis Council, a European drug-policy research institution.

Here's their webpage with details on the idea and the opium situation in Afghanistan: http://www.senliscouncil.net/modules/Opium_licensing

This idea has been endorsed by the New York Times: http://www.senliscouncil.net/modules/media_centre/opeds/03_oped

Believe it or not, but there is currently "a global shortage of opiate-based medicines."

According to Senlis and the NY Times, "meeting the global need for pain medications would require 10,000 tons of opium a year - more than twice Afghanistan's current production."

The NY Times says: "This shortfall is in part attributable to misguided regulation. Restrictions aimed at preventing diversion to the illegal market are so severe that in some countries, medical use of opioids is practically prohibited. Often, the rich retain access to expensive synthetic opioids like OxyContin, while those who cannot afford brand-name drugs receive no treatment at all. Generic morphine and codeine, made from Afghan opium, could help. "

Check out the Senlis website for some very detailed analysis of how the global drug war is only serving to fuel conflict in Afghanistan: http://www.senliscouncil.net/

In fact, illicit drugs and the CIA are to blame for J.B. Aristide's ouster from Haiti, according to Dr. Aristide himself. The Clinton admin began complaining of the Haitian military's involvement in smuggling Colombian drugs into the States using Haiti/Dominican Rep. as a conduit. Political commentators say the fact that there were no complaints from the previous Bush admin or Clinton's until Aristide's election implies U.S. de facto support for the real rulers in Haiti, its military rulers and former right-wing death squad leaders. Cocaine, opium, yes they're different drugs, but both are special funding sources for covert CIA operations( and I think Jerry West? here mentioned Wall Street finance(laundered drug money) and political kick-backs on the right) as well as big pharma's in the manufacture of white powder pills with codeine and a less potent than heroin drug, morphine. Drug patents are big pharma's hundred plus billion dollar a year racket. So I wouldn't worry my pretty little head over this issue very much at all - it's all claimed and accounted for already.

[ 03 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

If we want to promote social stability, a strong Afghan government and support for western democratic ideals, then I think legitimizing the Afghan opium trade is a great start.

It seems likely that Afghan opium farmers would agree to a slight drop in revenue if they could ensure their crops weren't burned.

We could help build processing plants in Afghanistan to convert raw opium into pharmaceutical-grade medicines.

This would provide increased employment, and a tax base for the Afghan government.

Licensig opium farmers would reduce or eliminate the amount of illegal opium revenue available to the insurgents to fund their warfare.

And we'd be helping to fill a global need for pain-relief medication, for which we currently have a vast unmet demand.

quote:

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Originally posted by otter:
Hold on now. Why the hell should we be importing our heroin from way over there? Surely there are entrepeneurs that can grow, distill and market the product right here?

Made in Canada, Buy Canadian, Support Canada!

---

Afghanistan is the world's #1 poppy producer, but they have little access to the world's legal markets.

I'd rather see Canada spend money to buy Afghanistan opium, then see us spend money and Canadian lives trying to wipe out their opium crops.

I think most of Canada's legal opiate supply is currently grown in the Australian state of Tasmania.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Dana Larsen ]

quote:

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Originally posted by unionist:
... do you think the foreign invaders should be driven out first?

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They were driven out once before. I am talking about the Russians. And what? Have the country become well off? I don't think so. We've seen-woman/children abuse, torture, religious (read fanatical) dictatorship, warlords- it was all present. And i think opium is one of the deadliest drugs and banning it completely (unless used in micro quantities in certain medications)would be the step in the right direction. When i think of it-isn't it the case already?

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: venus_man ]

They had for a long time a constitutional monarchy that allowed for substantial political representation from a variety of party, and an expanding economy, and created a constitution that went a long way to protecting human rights.

What the Europeans have done since that time is destroy the country by fueling sectarian wars, and supporting unpopular politicians and funding their operations through the narco-economy.

This was all done in the name of "social advancement" wether socialist or capitalist, and people like you are so completely caught up in your own superiority complex that you fail to even bother to research what you are talking about, and instead fill the world with meaningless chatter, much of which assumes that the Afghans are completely incapable of achieving anything without your helpful advice, or our military intervention.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: venus_man ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:

They had for a long time a constitutional monarchy that allowed for substantial political representation from a variety of party, and an expanding economy, and created a constitution that went a long way to protecting human rights.

---

Before 1978, the Afghan economy could be accurately described as feudalism with landless peasants paying nomadic herders for the right to exist supplementing with farming or herding with handicrafts. The tribal chiefs held power based on land and water ownership. Women and children, like farm animals, were the property of males and bought for a bride price. Mullahs influenced secular and religious matters and controlled considerable wealth. Women and the subjugated faced brutal oppression. Those were the good old days under successive corrupt monarchies and were no better than the slimeball Savoy's trying to hang on a throne in Italy today.

And the west has somehow managed to hand all that back to them.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by venus_man:
Gosh man, here you start again your personal attacks. Why are you calling me a barbarian? Why are you saying that I have a superiority complex? Just to show off your non-superiority and 'wisdom'or what? Or because I dare to not agree with you on issues? But then it’s you the one with the complex.

---

Yes yes its because your such a maverick superstar genius that I hate you.

No I hate your fucking guts because you dare to come here and talk about exterminating people like cockroaches. What could be more of an example of a "superiority complex" than referring to people whom you would like to see dead as vermin?

Go actually read what is between the covers of some books rather than adorning this site with the wisdom you have derived from reading the back cover blurb of philisophy texts while high on acid.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Before 1978, the Afghan economy could be accurately described as feudalism with landless peasants paying nomadic herders for the right to exist supplementing with farming or herding with handicrafts. The tribal chiefs held power based on land and water ownership. Women and children, like farm animals, were the property of males and bought for a bride price. Mullahs influenced secular and religious matters and controlled considerable wealth. Women and the subjugated faced brutal oppression. Those were the good old days under successive corrupt monarchies and were no better than the slimeball Savoy's trying to hang on a throne in Italy today.

And the west has somehow managed to hand all that back to them.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

---

So the USSR story goes, and then in blinding flash between 1978--1979 presdent Amin managed the miracle of bringing not only fire and the wheel to the downtrodden Afghans, but paved streets, universities, schools, womens rights, an end to poverty and the miniskirt.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

It was a war in modern times begun largely over women's issues.

quote:

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Before the reform-minded PDPA took power in the late 1970s, Afghan women were forced to wear the stifling head to toe veil, and had no right to own property, go to school, or divorce. They were considered non-persons in the eyes of the law. The female literacy rate was one percent and polygamy was common. ...

One picture taken shortly after the Taliban takeover says it all: a trembling woman covered in a head to toe veil, her face completely obscured, sobs as she speaks with a Western reporter. Who is she? An impoverished peasant? A homeless woman? No, she's the recently removed chief surgeon at the country's largest hospital!

---

And according to the Pentagon's country studies book for Afghanistan 1986,

quote:

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Before the revolution, female illiteracy had been 96.3 percent in Afghanistan. Rural illiteracy of both sexes was 90.5 percent.

By 1985, despite a counter-revolutionary war financed by the CIA, there had been an 80-percent increase in hospital beds. The government initiated mobile medical units and brigades of women and young people to go to the undeveloped countryside and provide medical services to the peasants for the first time.

Among the very first decrees of the revolutionary regime were to prohibit bride-price and give women freedom of choice in marriage.

Historically, said the U.S. manual, gender roles and women's status have been tied to property relations. Women and children tend to be assimilated into the concept of property and to belong to a male.

---

And according to one Afghani exile who returned to Kabul for the first time since 1989, he said the place is still a shambles in comparison with the ten years of PDPA rule.

I wonder how many Afghani women could actually read the print on their trolley tickets in 1977, Cueball ?.

Censoring education in 1977 Afghanistan

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

All of Afghanistan's production going into the legal production of pharmaceuticals would cause a severe shortage of recreational opiates which would drive up the price which would drive up production in other places and provide incentives for black market diversion of the Afghan crop, not to mention increased crime in user locations to finance a more expensive drug habit.

Legalizing and rationally controlling opiates is something that has to happen on both ends of the supply chain from producer to end user in order to actuall make some progress reducing the problems caused by illicit drugs.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
I wonder how many Afghani women could actually read the print on their trolley tickets in 1977, Cueball ?.

Censoring education in 1977 Afghanistan

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
What were they doing sprinling Peter Popov's miracle water on their text books?

---

This is what the Illinois College of Ed - Encyclopaedia Iranica had to say about the state of education in 1977,

quote:

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By 1977, however, many schools in Afghanistan had no buildings and the majority of students did not have books, chairs, or desks, and other instructional materials. To reduce the pressure on the education system and the labor market the government instituted an examination at the end of the eighth grade to “select out” students. This examination was called the concours, after similar achievement tests in France. It was initiated by a UNESCO-UNDP and Afghan Government inspired educational reform program (UNESCO, 1977).

The real aim of the concours was to prevent most children from entering the ninth grade. The resultant pool of dropouts was to be captured by the many vocational schools that were supposed to provide the necessary human resources for a network of railroads that was to be financed by the Shah of Iran. No significant funding came from Iran. No vocational schools were built and, of course, no railroads. This concours and the injustices it symbolized later became one of the battle cries of the Soviet inspired Afghan communists after April 1978 coup.

---

Yes, and we know what happened to billions of dollars of Iran's treasury when the Shah was kicked out of that country by the people. It was a familiar story with western-backed precedents, like Chiang Kai-shek, Syngman Rhee, the Marcos' etc ad nauseum

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

And of course this program intitiated in 1977 was supposed to be fully in place by 1978, according to your source. You know, building railroads and vocational schools is easy when you have USSR brand (just add water) Infrastructure Creation Kit (ICK.)

The reality is that after the coupe still no railroads, still no vocational schools etc. Some roads to improve logistics and supply lines for the soviet army and that is about it.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:

Yes yes its because your such a maverick superstar genius that I hate you.

No I hate your fucking guts because you dare to come here and talk about exterminating people like cockroaches. What could be more of an example of a "superiority complex" than referring to people whom you would like to see dead as vermin?

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

You hate my fucking guts-who the fuck are you? Stop the personal attacks. That's it-hate is a real cause of your rhetoric. Frankly i don't give a damn about your hate. You and some of your bodies here pretending to be peaceful, and yet launch attacks, swearing all the time (as if i afraid of your swearing-ha!) and constantly misinterpret what other say. I've noticed that you hate when someone say things differently then it set in your head, because you think you know how everything is. Well to bad for you!

And Beltov mentioned something about me saying that the production of opium increased during Taliban, could he please point to where exactly i said that. I would like to see that. I know Taliban profits from opium trade, and that information coming form the Canadian troops on the ground.

quote:

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Fidel:

How about Burma and the golden triangle, Jerry?. Weren't those countries major opium growing nations during or after the war ?.

---

Opium can be produce all over the world. Although Afghanistan is the leading producer Mexico, Columbia, Burma, Laos, Thailand and China (the last 4 in the Golden Triangle) produce it as well as Australia, Turkey, many of the former Soviet Republics and other countries. Like Marijuana it can be raised in a lot of places, and like Marijuana if the demand is there so will be the production.

quote:

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Originally posted by venus_man:

You hate my fucking guts-who the fuck are you? Stop the personal attacks. That's it-hate is a real cause of your rhetoric. Frankly i don't give a damn about your hate. You and some of your bodies here pretending to be peaceful, and yet launch attacks, swearing all the time (as if i afraid of your swearing-ha!) and constantly misinterpret what other say. I've noticed that you hate when someone say things differently then it set in your head, because you think you know how everything is. Well to bad for you!

And Beltov mentioned something about me saying that the production of opium increased during Taliban, could he please point to where exactly i said that. I would like to see that. I know Taliban profits from opium trade, and that information coming form the Canadian troops on the ground.

And cueball i will be speaking out my views regardless and your hate-well it is for you to live with that. Enjoy!

---

What you call "your views" are mere hate literature.

Your comparison of alledged Taliban people in Afghanistan to "cockroaches" to be "exterminated" is a personal attack against anything of value in this society. You are one stupid, venal and sick asshole.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Thank you. Excelent. So what you have established is that in the 1970's the government was capable and interested in implimenting educational policies derived from the French model.

And of course, after the coupe still no railroads, still no vocational schools etc. Some roads to improve logistics and supply lines for the soviet army and that is about it.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

---

Of course, you do realize there was a civil war raging in 1980's Afghanistan?. Rockets? RPG's? mercenaries and proxy fighters pouring in from all sides and aided by Pakistan's illegit militia government, and with billions of dollars in aid from the CIA and Saudi's?. I think some people would prefer to believe the Soviets and PDPA army were duking it out with Afghani peasants armed with nothing but the Koran in one hand and wodden sticks in the other from 1989 to 1992.

The largest aid donor to Afghanistan leading up to 1990's was always the Soviet Union. And now it looks as though the several billion dollars a year in CIA aid to factional leaders has been cut way back since 1992. Afghanistan still has some of the worst infant mortality rates next to the poorest of poor in Africa, another cold war interest of the west. And Canadian soldier from Sault Sainte Marie said recently that they're short of food right now in Afghanistan. So where's the aid and reconstruction money going ?.

They were going to but ran out of time, Sure-sure ya-ya. Kind hearts and coronets just weren't getting it done in 1977. Daoud's purging of the left and shining up to the west and corrupt Shah was the last straw. What the Soviet-backed Marxists were able to achieve while proxy war was building around them was remarkable. Look at Glenn Sachs article, it's telling you something. Sachs is a former teacher who left education to study Latin American civics and hosting talk live radio in the U.S.

In fact, after the most ruthless factional leaders were finished rocketing and bombing Kabul and Jalalabad, there wasn't much left to take pictures of. Even the USAF said there was damn little infrastructure left in Afghanistan 2 carpet bomb.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

---

Venus_man

I know Taliban profits from opium trade, and that information coming form the Canadian troops on the ground.

---

That is true at the present. They need the cash to fight the foreign invaders. However, in the past they had cut down on the trade.

I have about as much use for the Taliban as I do their cousins the born again Christian fruit cakes and the Zionist nut bars and all of the other fairytale believers who put religious fantasies ahead of secular realities.

However, let's not take them out of context. Giver their druthers according to their past performance they would restrict opium production if not wipe it out.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:

In fact, after the most ruthless factional leaders were finished rocketing and bombing Kabul and Jalalabad, there wasn't much left to take pictures of. Even the USAF said there was damn little infrastructure left in Afghanistan 2 carpet bomb.

---

None of this has anything to do with the UNESCO project you were talking about, which you claim somehow shows the backward-feudalness of the Afghan government prior to the Soviet invasion.

Your article seems to complain that these vocational schools and railroads were all supposed to be built in a year between 1977, and 1978. How was that supposed to happen?

More importantly, how is this an example of the failure of the pre-Soviet government?

That is like asserting that an infrastructure project larger than the Toronto Subway system was to be built in a year, plus the creation of a whole bunch of schools. In this country, Canada, it takes a year to build one school, but you insist that the pre-Soviet invasion Afghan government was to have built them in a matter of months, in order to pass your ideological purity test.

Time to get off your ideological soap box and check into reality.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
But your article seems to complain that these vocational schools and railroads were all supposed to be built in a year between 1977, and 1978. How was that supposed to happen?

---

"Slaps forehead" When did Daoud unseat his imperial cousin, Cueball?.

Because my question to you, and Afghanistan's leftists under Daoud were asking the same thing at the time, is why were there no significant gains made on the social democracy front between 1973 and 1978 ?.

He was too busy shining up to the corrupt Shah and allowing the U.S. to install military radar installations in Afghanistan, that's why, Cueball.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

"Slaps forehead" When did Daoud unseat his imperial cousin, Cueball?.

Because my question to you, and Afghanistan's leftists under Daoud were asking the same thing at the time, is why were there no significant gains made on the social democracy front between 1973 and 1978 ?.

He was too busy shining up to the corrupt Shah and allowing the U.S. to install military radar installations in Afghanistan, that's why, Cueball.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

---

Sorry Fidel we are talking about one specific pieve of evidence you have brought to light. The example of your article is a specific UNESCO infrastructure project initiated in 1977. Your article asserts that the Afghan government failed in it promise to institute the reforms outlined in the plan, which included building railroads and a set of vocational training schools.

I am asking you how all of this was supposed to have happened between the time the plan was initiated, and the April coupe? You have no answer, because you no very well that large scale railway projects and school building projects do take years and years.

Therefore, your example, the failure of the UNESCO project, is completely useless.

In fact, if it indicates anything, it indicates that the communist take-over was counter productive on a number of fronts, not only undermining prgressive reforms, but also destablizing the country so that it was impossible for the communist government to make progress on these issues as well.

And that of course, is all a result of various foreign forces collectively assaulting the intergrity of Afghan sovereignty to pursue their petty game known as the "cold war."

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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Originally posted by venus_man:

Bravo cueball! Your language is getting even more cueballish. Open up man, it's good for you! I don't mind because that's you who saying all that swering rabish, and that is why you are all that. Capish? Stop the personal attacks.
Well let's call Taliban ants, how about that? Cockroaches seem to be very close to your heart. Do you have a lot of them at your place? Are you nurturing them? Sorry didn’t mean to hurt your intimate love for cockroaches.

What i said is that Taliban needs to be wiped out (by any means) that also includes education as one of the means. I didn't say-kill them all. But same taliban burns down the schools Canadians and others build. And yes, if someone rape woman, abuse children and execute the innocent, plus profiting from selling opium and on top of that conspiring against the place I leave in- fight them! Jail them.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
No what it means is that you are stacking the evidence deck with bad evidence, and it makes the rest of your assertions questionable.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cueball:

I am asking you how all of this was supposed to have happened between the time the plan was initiated, and the April coupe? You have no answer, because you no very well that large scale railway projects and school building projects do not take years and years to succeed.

Therefore, your example, the failure of the UNESCO project, is completely useless.

---

I think you're missing the point here. The money for railroads was supposed to come from Iran. That just wasn't going to happen. As in "at all." Because the Shah was corrupt and absconded with billions of dollars in oil profits from the Iranian people and taken to the U.S. where he was welcomed with open arms by Wall Street jackals.
'
Add to that the concours program for education reform sounded like it was deviating from the UNESCO model. It seems the entrance examinations were being used to deny Afghani children the opportunity to attend high school. Of course, we all know about the Orwellian euphemism, Ignorance is Strength. Literacy tends to lead to social unrest and revolution. Dauod was a bad leader who made bad decisions that were about to severely hamper a human rights revolution in his country. Look at how many women were attending school and becoming doctors, engineers and teachers in that country before and after 1978.

So that's my point.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

And still, the fact remains that expecting a huge infrastructure project like that take off suddenly without all kinds of hemming and hawing about financial details, is, well, silly. Lots of things in the USSR didn't quite go up as planned, and took longer to do that expected for many reasons, it is hardly an appropriate condemnation of a whole government.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

Cueball, there were Marxists in Latin America promising and delivering on the same basic items in question: health care, clean water and education. And it was the contras' contract, hired mercenaries from around the Caribbean and South/Central America, to destroy civilian infrastructure, and, get this part, commit rape and torture against civilians, the poor and downtrodden. Sound familiar?. That's because CIA operations condor and cyclone were orchestrated by the same people operating within the same ideological guidelines for the export of terrorism to divide and conquer and maintain oppression of whole nations of people. Why ?. To prevent the spread of communism.

There, is that what you wanted to hear ?.

How long has it been since the Soviets left Afghanistan?. How long does it take hang a few traffic lights in Kabul ?. Infant mortality and poverty in Afghanistan are absolutley appalling today.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

The point I am making is that no civil society can evolve in a state of war, and that the primary cause of factional fighting in Afghanistan, or at least the agent of the excess, is the constant interference of outside forces, each allying with specific local forces, in the name of high minded goals, but each actually contributing in its own way to the disorganization and destruction of civil society, and consequently the possibility of progressive civil reforms, by anyone, communist or otherwise.

War itself is the absence of civilization.

[ 07 September 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

quote:

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i think opium is one of the deadliest drugs and banning it completely (unless used in micro quantities in certain medications)would be the step in the right direction.

---

Opium is a wonderful medicinal plant with thousands of years of historical use as a cultural, social, religious and medicinal plant.

Opium concentrates can be deadly, but in its natural form it is quite safe, certainly as safe or safer than other legal drugs including alcohol.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jerry West:
Licensing the production of opium in Afghanistan and buying it all up to produce medicinal drugs without changing drug policies around the world, particularly in the US and other top economic societies would be a mistake.

All of Afghanistan's production going into the legal production of pharmaceuticals would cause a severe shortage of recreational opiates which would drive up the price which would drive up production in other places and provide incentives for black market diversion of the Afghan crop, not to mention increased crime in user locations to finance a more expensive drug habit.

Legalizing and rationally controlling opiates is something that has to happen on both ends of the supply chain from producer to end user in order to actuall make some progress reducing the problems caused by illicit drugs.

Of course legalized and far less expensive drugs could do serious damage to the world banking system.

---

I find your analysis interesting and valid. But I disagree with your conclusion that we can only license Afghan opium once we have changed global drug policies.

We have Canadian and other soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan, trying to "build democracy" and "liberate the Afghan people." Yet we are attacking the base of their economy, and driving their people into the arms of the warlords who will buy their opium crops so these farmers can feed their families.

If we want to win the support of these farmers, if we want to reduce the influence of the warlords, if we want to give the Afghan government a tax base to operate from, if we want to bring stability to the region... then licensing their number one crop for legal pharmaceuticalization and legal distribution is a good plan.

Yes this could mean that the underground opium market moves to other countries, but that is a separate issue. Right now our attention and troops and money are all focussed on Afghanistan, and this would help the situation there immensly.

quote:

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We have Canadian and other soldiers fighting and dying in Afghanistan, trying to "build democracy" and "liberate the Afghan people."

---

I still remember in the 1980's seeing bricks with a gold embossed logo of a crossed hash pipe and machine gun and the rousing slogan Freedom for Afghanistan. Ollie North knew how to sell drugs.

quote:

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You have all forgotten the other Afghan drug (the one many of us preferred in the '70's) Black hash has now disappeared from the Canadian marketplace.

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I support legalization of marijuana, of course.

quote:

---

Dana Larsen:
Yes this could mean that the underground opium market moves to other countries, but that is a separate issue.

---

All issues are inter-related and removing Afghan opium from the illicit market without shrinking that market is just moving a problem from one place to another.

Such a move would create new problems with the countries where production would shift to, and the increased cost of heroin on the streets at home would most likely lead to an increase in crime and social instability.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jerry West:
Wiping out opium production in Afghanistan without addressing the demand problem and thereby allowing the prices and hence profits to rise would be engaging in a losing battle of whack-a-mole.

---

Apparently the Soviets were interested in the poppy fund, and the supply of opium from Afghanistan has only risen since 1980. I think the CIA and Wall Street are in for their cut now by what I've read. Wherever the CIA has been, Indochina, SE Asia, Colombia, Haiti etc, the world saw a proliferation of drugs exported from those countries at different rates and periods. I think drug money has funded a few covert wars waged around the world - right-wing political campaigns - as well as laundered drug money used to prop up more than one economy.

It's sad, and I agree with people here that heroin should be made available for pain relief in hospitals around the world. It's superior to T-3's, 222's, morphine and whatever other pills big pharma is pushing. And for those people hooked on habits for which there is no scientifically-proven cure, I think they could do with government regulated heroin and not having to play roulette with bathroom concoctions bought on the street. Government regulated heroin could save a lot of people from excruciating pain and leading lives of desperation, taxpayer-funded incarceration and misery.

[ 13 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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All issues are inter-related and removing Afghan opium from the illicit market without shrinking that market is just moving a problem from one place to another.

---

You may very well be correct. But does this mean we should do nothing?

Canada has troops in Afghanistan, our attention is focussed there, we're fighting and dying there, spending big bucks there. So if buying up the Afghna opium crop would help stabilize Afghanistan, why not do it? Even if it creates problems elsewhere, it could still help Afghanistan.

quote:

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We would probably be better off with too much illicit opium on the market than too little unless we make access to legal opiates much easier.

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There's literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in the world who are suffering in pain because of an opiate shortage, and because of overly restrictive laws which make legal access difficult. If we allowed opiates to reach those in pain who need them, then the underground demand would shrink somewhat.

And yes, let's put aside some of the opiates and use them to produce safe options for the heroin addicts in Canada and elsewhere.

quote:

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Dana Larsen:
Even if it creates problems elsewhere, it could still help Afghanistan.

---

quote:

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Yes, but It is unwise to consider these problems in isolation. One has to weigh off the help in Afghanistan against the damage elsewhere and come up with a solution that results in a net overall reduction in harm, not a transference of harm or a possible increase in one area greater than the reduction in another.

---

Well let's end the whole war on drugs, I'm all for that. Of course I agree. And yes things are interrelated.

But maybe licensing Afghan opium can be one of the first steps in the global shift away from worldwide drug war?

Or must we continue with the present policy of aggressive eradication until we can end the worldwide drug war everywhere simultaneously?

It seems to me that licensing Afghan opium production is a good first step in the right direction, but it is certainly not the last one.

Here's a press release from Senlis from earlier this year:

---------------------
SENLIS COUNCIL NEWS RELEASE
18 January 2006

Opium Licensing pinned as hope for Afghan drug crisis by European Parliament

Parliament calls current counter-narcotics strategies “seriously flawed”

BRUSSELS – A proposal recently put forward by The Senlis Council, an international drug policy think tank was adopted today in a resolution by the European Parliament, calling on decision-makers to consider opium licensing for the production of medicines as an option for tackling the massive drug crisis in Afghanistan.

“The resolution is very encouraging for Afghanistan,” said Emmanuel Reinert, Executive Director of The Senlis Council. “By acknowledging the viability of an opium licensing system in Afghanistan, the European Parliament has not only paved the way for possible change in drug policy in that country, but could help set a precedent for a new approach to the global drug issue in general.”

Article 19 in the resolution adopted urged participants of the London Donors’ Conference on Afghanistan to “take into consideration the proposal of licensed production of opium for medical purposes, as already granted to a number of countries.”

The resolution questions the efficiency of what it calls “the extremely high costs and serious flaws” of current counter-narcotics strategies in Afghanistan, and highlights its concern for increasing heroin use in Afghanistan which could lead to an HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region.

Counter-narcotics strategies in Afghanistan have so far been limited to crop eradication and alternative livelihood programmes, but these tactics have barely dented the amount of opium produced, which went down a mere 2% in 2005.

The United Nations has estimated that over 13 million Afghans are involved in the drug trade, with more than 2.3 million Afghans involved in opium cultivation. Alternative livelihood programmes have given little or no incentive to switch to legal crops for farmers for whom opium is the only source of income. In another UN report released last month, crop eradication was found to be at the root instability in many regions of Afghanistan.

“Eradication is a very dangerous and destructive policy to pursue,” said Reinert. “Drug policy is the core issue in Afghanistan’s security and aggressive tactics such as eradication should not be used,” he warned.

“We hope that decision-makers will heed the call of the European Parliament and continue to guide policy towards a more progressive, more effective and, most importantly, humanitarian approach,” Reinert said. “Opium licensing could provide Afghanistan with the stability and the income it needs to stand on its own two feet. This is crucial for Afghanistan’s reconstruction and its future.”

Is there a third way? Because if the only options are robust military force or licensed legal opium then I still vote for the latter.

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UN Office on Drugs and Crime - UNODC Press Release

UN drugs chief calls for extra resources to help NATO target Afghan opium

BRUSSELS, 12 September (UNODC) - The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, called on Tuesday for robust military action by NATO forces to destroy the opium industry in southern Afghanistan.

Presenting details of the 2006 UNODC Annual Opium Survey at a news conference in Brussels, he noted that the dramatic surge in opium cultivation and production had occurred mainly in the increasingly lawless southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.< br>

"In the turbulent southern region, counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics efforts must reinforce each other so as to stop the vicious circle of drugs funding terrorists and terrorists protecting drug traffickers," the UN drugs chief said.

"I call on NATO forces to destroy the heroin labs, disband the open opium bazaars, attack the opium convoys and bring to justice the big traders. I invite coalition countries to give NATO the mandate and resources required."

Opium cultivation throughout Afghanistan surged 59% to 165,000 hectares in 2006. The opium harvest was an unprecedented 6,100 tonnes, an increase of 49 percent from 2005, making Afghanistan virtually sole supplier to the world.

Only six of the country's 34 provinces are opium-free. Cultivation fell in eight provinces, mainly in the more stable north. Around the country, the number of people involved in opium cultivation increased by almost a third to 2.9 million, representing 12.6% of the total population.

"Revenue from the harvest will be over three billion dollars this year, making a handful of criminals and corrupt officials extremely rich," Mr Costa said. "This money is also dragging the rest of Afghanistan into a bottomless pit of destruction and despair."

The UNODC Executive Director warned drug-consuming nations that the Afghan opium boom was likely to fuel a surge in the number of lethal drug overdoses when the new heroin starts reaching users in 2007

"Experience shows that massive over-supply of heroin does not lead to lower prices but to higher-purity heroin doses. That means more deaths from overdoses," he said. "I fear that in 2007, once the new crop has reached the retail markets, Afghan opium will kill more than the 100,000 people of the recent past."

Concerted action was needed in response to the alarming increase in opium production

This should include:

* making farmers think twice before planting opium this autumn. The carrot of development assistance should be combined with the stick of eradication of illegal crops. "The goal should be to double the number of opium-free provinces next year, and double them again in 2008. That is ambitious, but achievable," Mr Costa said.

* increasing development aid. "The Taliban offer daily wages twice the earnings of opium sharecroppers. Aid money needs to increase and to flow faster."

* making aid programmes conditional on drug and integrity clauses. The more vigorously district and provincial leaders commit themselves to eliminate opium and curb corruption, the more aid they should receive. This would help poor farmers and reassure western taxpayers who fund the relief effort. "If we lose their support, insurgents will have an unlimited supply of foot-soldiers and no resources will be available to fight them," the UNODC chief warned.

* bringing major criminals to justice. It is imperative for the Afghan government to pursue the most notorious drug traffickers and the most glaring cases of corruption so as to fill the one hundred beds of the new, maximum-security prison at Pul-I-Charki near Kabul. Seizure and redistribution of illicitly acquired assets, particularly land and houses, will strengthen the government's credibility and popular support.

* encouraging Afghanistan's neighbours to curb the flow of volunteers, arms and money for the insurgency as well as the import of the chemicals needed to make heroin.

* curbing heroin consumption. Coalition nations assisting Afghanistan are also the biggest consumers of its heroin. They need to be more vigorous in tackling demand for the drug.

The UNODC Executive Director said the superficially enticing proposal to turn illicit opium into morphine for medical purposes was no panacea. It would take at least a generation before Afghanistan would be able to guarantee the security of the morphine trade, there was no global shortage of medical morphine and the price of illicit opium was five times that of medical opium.

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Angry Afghan officials have reprimanded British diplomats over a campaign by UK troops in Helmand telling farmers that growing poppy was understandable and acceptable.

A radio message broadcast across the province assured local farmers that the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) would not interfere with poppy fields currently being harvested.

"Respected people of Helmand. The soldiers of ISAF and ANA do not destroy poppy fields," it said. "They know that many people of Afghanistan have no choice but to grow poppy. ISAF and the ANA do not want to stop people from earning their livelihoods."

The message was drafted by British officers and carried on two local stations in Afghanistan's largest province. It infuriated senior Afghan officials - including the president, Hamid Karzai - who demanded and explanation. The Afghan government has been under intense western pressure to rein in the burgeoning drugs trade. Opium cultivation soared 59% last year, earning local traffickers £1.2bn. The spike was concentrated in Helmand.

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