Apologies for being boring

and harping on about this:

Support for Mr Karzai should be replaced by commitment to institutions, clearing the way for new leadership. The drugs trade, pillar of the insurgency and pillager of the government must be broken: the only way to do it is to buy up the opium crop and destroy it. The allies must stop the air strikes – except in open battle – and use troops to secure territory and focus on creating jobs, schools and clinics, roads and markets. Offering Afghans a path out of the lawlessness and corruption in which they are trapped is basic to any chance of success. It might split the Taliban. And it is a strategy all US allies should support.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f53ddec-ff8b-11dd-b3f8-000077b07658.html

but is anyone listening?

 

No. You can pay people not to grow it - much like the EU set-aside scheme.

 

Not boring at all MSR. But the message needs to be continually rammed home till the myopia of this Government and others (UN) finally falls away.

The simplest and easiest way to do this, is to get questions asked in the house, and that's as simple as getting your MP to ask them.

I disagree with destroying the crop. I very much support turning the crop into medical opiates and reaping the rewards.

Now if someone can construct that into cash terms for the Prime Minister, and sell the benefits of cheaper opiates and going back to free prescriptions for smackheads and the subsequent reduction in crime , as well as funding our operation there , then we might get somewhere.

Pombsen if we try that, they'll keep growing it and take the money anyway. They know how to grow opium, let them do that, and subsidise complimentary agricultural incentives from the sale of opium

 

Too hard to control. What would be stopping them taking the money not to grow it and then growing it anyway?

Much better to buy the crop, use what is needed for opiate based legitimate medicines and then store / destroy the rest.

 

To me this seems the best solution, why is it not?

Is there some self interest thing doing on?

Or is there a real problem with this course and if there is, what is it?

 

And offer an alternative. Saffron seems to work as an alternative in some places though it takes a couple of years before it's profitable.

Also keep in mind that the Taleban have a large amount of this crap stored. Destroying the crop now will mean an initial rise in prices. Thus we shouldn't expect immediate possitive effects. It's a long term issue and I'm not sure how much time is left for us all in Afghanistan.

 

Careful - this seems to a good idea and for the life of me I cannot see the problem with it

So that's that idea down the Swanee.

 

Agreed - it is hard to control, but less so if you pay them not to grow it whilst allowing them the opportunity to supplement this fixed income through production of other crops, and allowing them access to external markets in order to sell them.

Even then, the drug barons could then merely pay the farmer more to grow the opium, than the West pays him not so to do.

There is no easy solution, particularly until the West decide what it wants to achieve. With at least 4 distinctive, and inter-related but counter-productive tasks (capacity building, nation-building, counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics) is it any wonder that we remain firmly fixed to the hamster wheel.

 

Great idea, but IMO one reason it won't work is those corrupt officals that skim some money from each deal as it goes up the supply chain won't be getting their cut. The corruption starts at the top.

So unless the drugs are bought when they reach the top of the chain, having allowed the corrupt officals to each have their cut, it won't work. But if you allow this then you are guilty of propping up a corrupt government thats involved in the drugs trade.....

 

Hi Jarrod,

The market I envisaged for medical opiates was not confined to just the NHS.

As for prescriptions of opiates, I believe this was the case up to the late sixties?

.Sven makes a very good point , at what point in the supply chain do you buy the crop? If you cut (alllegedly) Afghan Government officials out of the loop , their first reaction will be to make things very very difficult for us.

Conversely, you could argue they're already doing that.

 

So why don't the reasonable countries around the world buy it and make it into MORPHINE, I heard some time ago there was a shortage world wide.

After all for what ever their reasons for NOT sending troops to the war, they can put their hands in their pockets and do some good for their own people!

 

Correct in every respect, Aunty Stella. It would also go a long way to alleviating the desperate shortage of medicinal opiate products in the world.

MsG

 

The answer is for people in the West/World to not use drugs..... no customer, no money, no point in growing the stuff. Simple answer but impossible to stop the taking of drugs it's never going to happen.

 

Does not seem like we grow enough: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-468430/The-painkilling-fields-Englands-opium-poppies-tackle-NHS-morphine-crisis.html

More here: http://www.poppyformedicine.net/ from ICOS ( http://icosgroup.net/ ), formerly Senlis.

msr

 

I was on Methadone for over SIX years, as a part of Pain Contol, it did not work either but they told me there was nothing better . . .

Although what ever the chemical in a joint, DOES work and that's just the resin . .

What IS it like to be pain free for the part of any one day?