Afganistan supplies 90% of the World's Heroin....

[Loosehead]

Heard this on Sky news Lunch time, I have no way of varifying the stat but if it's true that Afganistan supplies all this raw opium that wreaks havoc in the west then why don't the western forces just spray it with some kind of plant killer? They must have the manpower and equipment. Now I don't mean agent orange I mean one that doesn't completely ruin the land for other purposes. I suspect it's because of the fact that it's the main stay of the economy, any ideas anyone? Apparently the people starve because all the land is used for opium production.

[Zen]

Why not just buy it from the farmers,probably a lot cheaper then the cost of the Military presence.

[Big Al1st]

If the Farmers did not grow poppies then they would more than likely starve as alot of normal crops cannot survive in those conditions. The Taliban pay the farmers good money to produce the crops and by destroying them as you suggest would problably cause the situation in Afghanistan to get worse.

Zen provides a very valid answer and is one that the UN has thought about for some time but for some reason is not prepared to put thoughts into action

My biggest concern is that the Brit troops out there are a part of the UN but I feel their job is alot more difficult and dangerous than Iraq, and God knows that is bad enough.

Finally I dont know whether Afghanisatn supplies that much but the figure is well over 50%.

[goldenboy]

if the un troops sprayed it with weed killer then the cia wouldnt be able to sell it to western markets and fund their gun running activities.

[Catso]

After the first 'invasion', wasn't there a UN or US scheme that paid the farmers extra to grow 'proper' crops IE food? I think it petered out because either the farmers weren't paid what they were promised or there was no money in the kitty to continue. So they all went back to poppies, as they know there's a market for them!
It is, now, the country's main export, I believe. But I doubt it supplies 90%.

[jump79]

I thought Colombia was the world leader in supplying drugs and such?


I think opium is a major sustainer of their economy at present, but Aghanistan is only one of the many suppliers feeding the ever increasing demand in the drugs market worldwide. If Afghanistan is barred from supplying the drugs in future, another supplier/country will come along in no time to fill in the gap and reap the profits from this fast growing industry.

[maxximus]

yes it would seem rather strange after five years of occupation with american, british and now canadian forces that this could be the case, and that anywhere outside the capital kabul is deemed "not safe".after a brief visit to bush's ranch and a dispute over a pipeline, taliban officials went home and proceeded to destroy all of their poppy fields (there is a school of thought that it is not a coincidence that the missing crop coincides with the collapse of enron) and is it just another coincidence that the invasion of afghanistan was timed with the planting season for poppy.(a crop not planted before november will not be suitable for harvest) not wanting to miss two in a row perhaps?(consequences could be financially devastating) and yes today afghanistan produces more opium than it ever has.(still playing catch up on the missing one perhaps) golden boy is on the mark. here is a website for you fender. http://public-integrity.org/articles/publications72.htm

[jake-the-peg]

Because we're fighting the Taliban not the local farmers.

There's a certain degree of "hearts and minds" going on here. If the Western forces destroy the opium the farmers will be driven into the arms of the Taliban.

There have been a number of "crop replacement" programs unfortunately sometimes they have gone rather badly wrong.

Such as when british troops distroyed poppies promising to pay $350 compensation for every 1/5 acre which was never paid.

There's a lot of various news stories about the Afgahn opium problem here: http://www.poppies.org/afghanistan/

There is a certain irony in British troops distroying opium given that 150 years ago we were running hundreds of tons a year into China and fought 2 opium wars with the Chinese when they tried to stop us.

Ah the Glories of Empire!

[maxximus]

yes you are right, my understanding is the poppy's and farmers are under the thumb of the northern alliance (warlords or coalition partners whichever you prefer) as the taliban before them and of course the taliban would like to change this. but that does not change the fact that nothing is being reconstructed and people are truly suffering. while western civillians are being addicted and officials are getting filthy rich.but as you say ' the glories of empire!'

[admarlow]

pay for opium poppys!!!! they should burn all of the fields and be done with it. You cant get away with growing it anywhere else so why afghanistan

[noxlumos]

Because it's stupid to make a bad situation worse addie mate? If people are desperate they'll do desperate things and the farmers have to feed their families, so the sensible thing was to give them a different option rather than get their backs up and give them a reason to hate the West. Why is it so hard to understand? Doesn't matter how we combat drugs as long as we do.Unfortunately we broke our promise, destroyed their crops and didn't pay them so now they all want to kill us, marvellous, another big success for the hard liners that through their complete lack of common sense and understanding are making the world worse every second.We had a real chance to make a difference there and we've blown it and sent them running to the Taliban in droves.So how good is the idea of burning their crops now then? We created exactly what we wanted to eliminate, more drugs and more support for extremeist Islamists hell bent on proving to their people how evil the West is.

[admarlow]

Well I hope we carry on destroying them, there is no way we should PAY drug producers, where does it stop, pay murderers to stop??

[Loosehead]

Well thanks for your answers everyone. I understand the issues better now.

[sixpence]

Can any one tell me if I've got this all wrong, please? If the opium poppy is used for the manufacture of medicinal drugs, why can't the Afghanistan poppies be grown for this legal purpose?
I suppose there must be a reason, so can anyone tell me.
Sorry to tag on to your posting loosehead, but I've been interested in what has been said.

[jno]

Loosehead... did you start a post recently saying knives don't kill people, people kill people? Sorry if I'm misremembering... anyway, I guess the same is true here: opium doesn't wreak havoc, it's the opium users who do. And they, of course, are in the west: opium is chiefly an export, about the only one Afghans have. The Afghans might resonably suggest that if the west wants to stop the opium trade in its tracks they need only stop buying the stuff.

As I recall (I could be way off beam here) the Taliban actually suppressed poppy production. Anyone else remember for sure?

[Loosehead]

You're not comparing like with like jno, I don't really want to get into the whole drug addiction thing but the main point is that they do not have free will, they are addicted. The point about the weapons is somewhat different. They wreak havoc because they must have their fix, if their dealers didn't have any they'd have to seek drug rehab or something.

[maxximus]

quite right jno but it's not as if western junkies are driving their cars over there, rolling their windows down and doing the (pssst, hey buddy can you help me out) and promptly driving back to their digs to get wasted. and yes the taliban did destroy the crops and the farmers did plant food crops. but as i stated earlier as soon as afghanistan was invaded and the taliban were driven out by the northern alliance and coalition forces, the food crops where immediatly destroyed and poppy replanted, tenfold. covert ops,bribes and weapons for warlords gets expensive and can't be done with taxpayers money. most of it ends up in europe so who cares right. the war in iraq is damn expensive, good to have a supply of hard cash available.oddly enough a man named ahmed shah masood (known as the lion of panjshir) an uzbek mujahadeen general that had the most success fighting the russians for twenty years, very anti-taliban, anti-ben laden. was assasinated two days before 911 nothing much was said about it because of all the chaos. cont

[jno]

fair point Loosehead, but I still believe the 'problem' with heroin is the users in the west, not the growers in the east. If fingers are to be wagged by the west, it should be at those who cause the havoc here, not at those trying to feed their families in Afghanistan. At present, it just looks as if the USA (in particular) can't deal with problems in America, so they just go and bomb Afghans instead.

[maxximus]

if he had of recieved help from the u.s. as he was fighting the taliban for sometime. he would have removed them from power much sooner. masood was a true hero to the afghan people and if democracy was the true aim, when the free and transparent election process took place he would have been the overwhelming favorite to be president. he was already the minister of defense.(instead we have a u.s. puppet who used to be an oil consultant for unocal corporation) he would have found osama bin ladden in a heartbeat, put the taliban out of business and eradicated poppy. this obviously was not desired. the u.s. backed him against the russians and then backed the taliban against him, and are now using his forces against the taliban and it's almost harvest time again!