Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan’s turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. “They were growing right outside the gate of our Forward Operating Base,” he told me. Within two weeks of his deployment to the remote town of Sangin, he realized that “poppy is the economic mainstay and everyone is involved right up to the higher echelons of the local government.”
Docherty was quick to realize that the military push into northern Helmand province was going to run into serious trouble. The rumor was “that we were there to eradicate the poppy,” he said. “The Taliban aren’t stupid and so they said, ‘These guys are here to destroy your livelihood, so let’s take up arms against them.’ And it’s been a downward spiral since then.”
Thirty-six years and hundreds of billions of dollars after President Richard M. Nixon launched the war on drugs, consumers worldwide are taking more narcotics and criminals are making fatter profits than ever before. The syndicates that control narcotics production and distribution reap the profits from an annual turnover of $400 billion to $500 billion. And terrorist organizations such as the Taliban are using this money to expand their operations and buy ever more sophisticated weapons, threatening Western security.
In the past two years, the drug war has become the Taliban’s most effective recruiter in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s Muslim extremists have reinvigorated themselves by supporting and taxing the countless peasants who are dependent one way or another on the opium trade, their only reliable source of income. The Taliban is becoming richer and stronger by the day, especially in the east and south of the country. The “war on drugs” is defeating the “war on terror.”
Supply is so plentiful that the price of a gram of heroin is plummeting in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom. According to the UNODC, the street price of a gram of cocaine in the United States is now less than $70, compared with $184 in 1990. Adjusted for inflation, that’s a threefold drop.
In Washington, the war on drugs has been a third-rail issue since its inauguration. It’s obvious why — telling people that their kids can do drugs is the kiss of death at the ballot box. But that was before 9/11. Now the drug war is undermining Western security throughout the world. In one particularly revealing conversation, a senior official at the British Foreign Office told me, “I often think we will look back at the War on Drugs in a hundred years’ time and tell the tale of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’ This is so stupid.”
As much as this article offers, it only scratches the surface. Corporations profit from fighting the War on Drugs – organized crime profits from the logistics. The response from our political hierarchy of hypocrites and reactionaries continues to be grounded in moralizing and prohibition. We know how well they work.
Some folks actually work at resolving questions like this.
The British East Indies company had and will always have control of the heroin trade in Afghanistan. Troops are there to ensure that continues.
it’s the american myth that there are simple silver-bullet solutions to complex problems, and that somehow by rallying around a stupid “war on ____” slogan that anything will change
and yet americans buy it every time
0. Eideard. I hate to be the one to break the news, but companies profit on more than a few things in this world. Take this blog and thread, seemingly unselfishly presenting the terrible drug situation in Afghanistan, f’rinstance.
3. Misanthropic Scott. So how’s that working out for alcohol abuse and those addicted to nicotine?
Now try it on hard drugs, some of which are completely addicting upon first use. But it’s not cool to stop these things if it involves moralizing and prohibition? Is that how it works?
RBG
“So how’s that working out for alcohol abuse and those addicted to nicotine?”
Well, this just in to DU Headline News: however well it is or isn’t working out, it’s an incontestible fact that it’s still working out better than putting the users of those substances in prison while getting billions in tax revenues from their producers – instead of funnelling billions into the pockets of criminals and terrorists.
That answer your question, RBG? 🙂
By the way, since we’re asking such things, how’d that war on alcohol work out?
Afganistan has a huge MADE BY AMERICA stamp on the ground.
Let’s just recast that last, shall we?
…it’s still working out better than putting the users of those substances in prison while funnelling billions into the pockets of criminals and terrorists. Taxing the users and producers generates billions in revenue and keeping those substances legal prevents a black market – as well as leaving room in our jails and prisons for people who are actually dangerous to the rest of us.
Deprives a lot of our incorruptible, infallible, superhuman guardians of everyone else’s behavior of the chance to feel smugly ‘superior’ though. Ah, well. You win some, you lose some. 😉
WOW,
What a way to pay for a war…
What a way to pay ALL the taxes..
what a way to pay for ROADS..
What a way to get rid of some IDIOTS..
3–Scott, you bastard. How can anyone post anything else after you have cornered the market??
Responding to idiots who diagree I suppose. – – – – – – – – -anyone want to continuing attempting to force their tired old ethics proven not to work all to our own detriment??? yes, a few still do.
HUH? The reason there is no cure for Cancer is they make more money treating it in all it’s forms. The reason there is no Peace is there is more money to be made starting wars all over the place. The reason there is no alternative energy is there is more money to be made selling oil and then trying to cleean up the Planet. If there were no drugs there would be no money made trying to eradicate them.
Wake up suckers.
There will be more drugs, more war, more oil, more cancer that is just the way the world turns.
Watch the money channel to learn how to profit from all of this!
yahoo!
#1: The British East Indies company had and will always have control of the heroin trade in Afghanistan
Will always? Difficult, given that it was dissolved in 1858…
Oh, I forgot to mention – some cancers have already been cured…
#3 2) Earmark the tax dollars from drugs to go solely to anti-drug programs and rehab centers.
The one pipe-dream in an otherwise sensible argument.
Like the tobacco settlement money the states got, to compensate them for the money spent on cancer-treatments costs…
Supposed to be used for treatment of cancer, stop-smoking programs, anti-smoking ads, etc…
But it all goes out the window when politicians realize there is a pool of money available which doesn’t require them to raise taxes, or slash funding for another program.
I still think we should have a variation on our program here in the US, of paying farmers not to grow crops.
If those farmers in Afghanistan are only growing poppies because there is no other cash crop – pay market-price to the farmer for his entire crop, and bring over our surplus farm equipment to plow-it-under before it can be harvested.
The price the farmers get is a fraction of what the stuff sells for on the street, so it should be relatively inexpensive to do.
#4 – RBG,
I didn’t know anyone had tried my suggestions for either. The still advertise alcohol and tobacco. They also haven’t earmarked the taxes for anti-alcohol and anti-tobacco programs and rehab. Do you know somewhere that they did try this?
#10 – bobbo,
Sorry. But, thanks!! (It’s just payback for you causing me to reevaluate some of my feelings about the death penalty.)
#16 – Mike Voice,
Of course it’s a pipe dream. It relies on having a set of rational laws. Remember though, there is still at least one shining example of successful earmarking of funds for a particular purpose. I’m sure some will disagree with me, but I’ll say it anyway. Social security!! No one has stolen the funds yet. And for the people who think it’s bankrupt, be prepared to back up why you think that a fund with two trillion dollars worth of the lowest risk investment in the U.S. (treasuries) is actually bankrupt.
So, yeah, the problem with those other things is that no one ever said the money was earmarked and put into a separate fund for the specific purpose of lowering the usage of, for example, tobacco.
You guys just don’t understand how an economy works, do you? Two trillion dollars worth of jobs: Why would those creating the jobs want the war to end?
Think about it, kids.
My last conversation with a Cop & friend, has heard the legalize discussion.
He had only one concern – how to tell DUI drivers apart?
Currently there’s no test, and no set limit.
So I agree that drugs should be decriminalized – (not necessarily legalized) – as a society, laws must be set and be enforceable.
The real problem is how much it costs to be enforced and the small results obtained.
Rather than enforcing at the end – at the beginning.
Much of those poppy growing farmers in Afghanistan are being paid 1/100,000,000th the street value.
IOW, it would be very easy to buy from these farmers at a much higher price, say double what the Talibans “give” their farmers. Then use the crop in Ethanol production.
Two birds with one stone.
Another solution, that was put out by Hervé in a TinTin comic, was to grow string beans instead, because the $$$ per ton was actually higher than from growing drug crops.
I’m sure that even 30 years later, Hervé is right.
With adequate water, most of Afghanistan could grow wine quality raisins. Specialty crops bring in extra money.
Have the Army outbid / out buy the Talibans.
Have the Army build irrigation systems. God knows the the Army Corps of Engineers are really good in diverting water.
#13: Will always? Difficult, given that it was dissolved in 1858…
I’m sure their relatives gave up control, and the profit it entailed… Bloodlines tend to carry on traditions, last i heard.
#20 – Mark Derail.
You have some very good ideas there. Two minor points though:
1) The water has to come from somewhere. We’re depleting our aquifers and all other fresh water reserves.
2) You said, God knows the the Army Corps of Engineers are really good in diverting water. I think this may be true only when they want to flood a city, see MRGO.
18 And for the people who think it’s bankrupt, be prepared to back up why you think that a fund with two trillion dollars worth of the lowest risk investment in the U.S. (treasuries) is actually bankrupt.
Because – as you well know – our Commander in Chief has gone on record as saying those securities are “…worthless IOUs from the US Government…”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200504290004
Most major televised media outlets failed to note that President Bush, in his one-hour press conference on April 28, made two flatly contradictory statements about the viability of U.S. treasury bonds, in which the Social Security trust fund is invested. Repeating a claim made in his recent travels throughout the country in support of Social Security privatization, Bush said that the treasury bonds owned by the trust fund represent worthless IOUs from the U.S. government. But he later touted those same bonds for holders of his proposed private accounts looking for a safe investment that would be “backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.”
Don’t you just hate a “flip-flopper”?
And then there was also that “file cabinet” press event:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050405-1.html
#20, Mark,
Interesting comments.
One place where they have made a strong push to educate against tobacco is Canada. Half the package are depictions of the down side to smoking. There are pictures of lungs, blackened with cancer; mouth cancer, throat cancer, etc. It has been a few years since I saw any Canadian tobacco packages, maybe some Canadians DU contributers could add to the list.
Anyway, using that strong anti-smoking message, I believe the smoking rate is about half that of the US.
#1 & 21, green,
Get a life. Screaming “conspiracy” only shows your moranity (new word).
It is my personal opinion that narco-corruption extends all through our federal government, even to the White House, as exemplified by Nixon, Clinton, and quite possibly Bush. There is SO MUCH MONEY involved, that, IMO, federal judges, DEA and FBI agents, and the local cop on the beat is on the take.
Now, alcohol prohibition did not end because all realized it was stupid, which they did. It ended because the Great Depression radically reduced the proceeds of the income tax, thereby making revenues from alcohol taxes of great import. It was all about money. The autorities of the day didn’t want to end the gravy train of graft, just as our authorities of today don’t want to end the gravy train of graft.
I feel the same occurs today. Anyone with a lick of sense can see that this “War on Drugs” is both a failure and a sham. It corrupts our government, wars on the populace, and drives otherwise law-abiding citizens into the arms of criminals.
Because of all this, a large proportion of the citizenry is criminalized, and subject to control. Which, it seems, it the goal.
In a word, it’s all insane. Or, in a few more words, it’s all crooked as a broken back snake, and a total lie.
Whaat you or I put into our bodies is our business, and none other’s.
All, there’s plenty of water in Afghanistan.
Before the wars they were plenty of canal systems, after all, that part of the world has probably had irrigation since the Roman Empire.
The soil in Afghanistan is quite rich, and their weather allows many crops per year.
So buy buying out the crops from drug farmers, in South America too, for a higher price than the local thugs, and helping them with irrigation, will be a double win.
Trying to fix things at home is a hopeless cause. If you buy out 90% of the drugs at their source, where it’s the cheapest, causing massive shortages, the price on the street will skyrocket out of proportion.
Just look at corn crops going up, doubled in the last few years.
If the street price of drugs doubled or tripled, I doubt crime would double & triple, would most likely be the same.
However people will get desperate, and desperate people make mistakes, making the Police’s job much easier.
As stupid as the War On (Some) Drugs is, it is not going to go away anytime soon nor easily. Those who are fighting this war want the money (and the power) that fighting drugs gives them, and those that are pushing the drugs don’t want it legalized because the WOSD makes it so much more profitable for them.
This country hasn’t learned anything from Prohibition.
#23 – Mark Voice,
I’ll read the statements later. But, what did that do to international ratings of U.S. Treasuries? Did the entire world treasury market collapse when Bush declared that they were worthless IOUs? I thought not. The reason is because everyone is quite confident that there is not (yet) any hint of the U.S. government defaulting on treasuries. They don’t get to pick and choose which creditors to pay. They would need to go into complete default to avoid payment.
I thought I remember Eideard discussing alternatives a few years back.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=2910
At the time, GSK was paying $35-50K/yr to opium farmers in New Zealand. No subsidy. Cash crops.
20–“He had only one concern – how to tell DUI drivers apart?
Currently there’s no test, and no set limit.”
Tell your fat ass lazy stupid cop friend to look for violations of law/safety rather than a “presumption” based on chemical testing?
Pay the farmers in Afghanistan, and then you only have the rest of the world to pay off as well. Still, bio-fuel does have some merit to it==with the general caveat being that food source bio fuels is a generic bad idea.
Napalm, napalm, napalm…
That is the answer to that question. Use the Harriers, A-10s, and whatever else over there to burn down each and every poppy plant. No good comes from this product and it’s existence. Medical sedatitives can all be made synthetically now. Torch it, & screw those who have built their life on it…
On this other thread, at post #65, Mister Mustard suggested:
I wonder if Mr. Condell is troubled that many people are treating him like the Messiah of the 21st century.
Based on my reply in post #66, I’m voting for “The Selecter” [sic] in post #31 as the new messiah. S/he seems right on target for creating a nice peaceful planet.
#24: Get a life. Screaming “conspiracy” only shows your moranity (new word).
http://tinyurl.com/2qwpo9
Get a clue. hint: google