Time to rethink the war on opium


istory repeats — especially with this administration. Now we read that Bush wants to press forward a U.S.-paid plan to spray the Afghanistan crop of poppies with glyphosate (Roundup to you and me — another handout to Monsanto; a campaign contributor to both Bushes). Nevermind that Nixon did this in Turkey in the ‘70s (using napalm) and the sudden demand for illegal drugs gave us cocaine trafficking and, as one senior police officer explained, a "non-traceable new mafia."

Nevermind that the "war on drugs" usually means trying to cut out the grower and trafficker, and punish the addicted. Nevermind that, somehow, the use of illegal drugs keeps growing. Nevermind that opium is addictive and if thousands of tons of heroin are being produced there must be a huge number of addicts who will want, somewhere, with something, to feed their habit (cocaine or meths labs anyone?).

Now, what Bush wants, really, is to take the profit from growing this opium poppy from benefiting the Taliban, especially in the Helmand provincial region of Afghanistan. The theory is, reduce their income and the United States will be able to defeat them.

Yeah, right, like that worked when we bombed the poppy fields in Laos and Cambodia. All it did was enable more control of the poorest by the remaining thugs. Pol Pot anyone?

I have a solution. Please tell your Congresswoman or Congressman. First a few facts. The U.N. says that Afghanistan produces 95 percent of the world’s opiates (the collective noun for anything coming from the opium poppy). Since our invasion, there has been a 72 percent increase in opium labs in Afghanistan as the Taliban and its supporters prefer to sell the more expensive product, not the raw poppy juice cake (which used to be processed in Pakistan).

Overall, since our invasion, poppy growing is up 17 percent and opium export is up 35 percent. It is clear that the Taliban has been taxing growers and traffickers alike.

In Helmand, they produce 4,400 metric tons of opium. That’s 9,680,000 pounds of the stuff, or 154,880,000 ounces, or 3 trillion fixes. At one per day (hardly likely), that’s 10,183,890 addicts, desperate for their habit. It is estimated that about 20 percent of those addicts are in North America. That’s more than 2 million North Americans.


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Okay, now Bush’s plan to spray will cost about $2 billion a year. In addition, the war on Afghanistan costs about $150 billion a year, so let’s call that $152 billion. Opium costs about $65 a pound reduced to cake, but in its raw state only $32. If you buy in tonnes, you can get a further 40 percent reduction (U.N. estimate). Knowing farmers, if you guaranteed them to buy the crop beforehand, they would give you a further 15 percent discount. That means the entire Helmand Province crop would cost $167,851,200. So let’s call it $166 billion, a bit more than Bush’s $152 billion war cost.


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Okay, but morphine, refined by the pharmaceutical industry (what a windfall that would be for their profit line — they should lobby for this), sells for $0.56 per pill (15mg). And if they made methadone for the 2 million North American addicts (45 mg. costs $1.60 each day), they would have a steady revenue of $1.2 billion per year in the United States alone.

Worldwide they could legally supply all the methadone at a turnover of over $6 billion. And it is estimated that U.S. hospitals could use about $56 billion of morphine per year, Europe about $160 billion per year. Then there are all those morphine-like pain medications like Oxycontin, which is a multi-billion dollar industry which could be, patriotically (someone tell Rush Limbaugh), changed to good old morphine addiction instead.

In the end, the cost of the war would be reduced, made more profitable, cheaper than throwing money into Monsanto’s hands for sprays which won’t help anyone.

So, my answer to the problem in Afghanistan? Apply American capitalism instead of American imperialism. Buy the suckers out. Remove the profit from the Taliban (if you are paying poor farmers, you can pay in cows, water, food, whatever you want); give it to the democratic people. Make the country rich, empower the poor to become capitalists. Feed the major pharmaceuticals’ need for profits. Help American addicts. Prevent a new "war on drugs" caused by destroying the heroin needed by addicts. Win the peace.

 


Mr. Riva is a longtime observer on matters local and global.

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