A Good Idea
Legalize Afghanistan's Opium Crop
the most depressing aspect of the Afghan poppy crisis is the fact that it exists at all—because it doesn't have to. To see what I mean, look at the history of Turkey, where once upon a time the drug trade also threatened the country's political and economic stability. Just like Afghanistan, Turkey had a long tradition of poppy cultivation. Just like Afghanistan, Turkey worried that poppy eradication could bring down the government. Just like Afghanistan, Turkey—this was the era of Midnight Express—was identified as the main source of the heroin sold in the West. Just like in Afghanistan, a ban was tried, and it failed.
As a result, in 1974, the Turks, with U.S. and U.N. support, tried a different tactic. They began licensing poppy cultivation for the purpose of producing morphine, codeine, and other legal opiates. Legal factories were built to replace the illegal ones. Farmers registered to grow poppies, and they paid taxes. You wouldn't necessarily know this from the latest White House drug strategy report—which devotes several pages to Afghanistan but doesn't mention Turkey—but the U.S. government still supports the Turkish program, even requiring U.S. drug companies to purchase 80 percent of what the legal documents euphemistically refer to as "narcotic raw materials" from the two traditional producers, Turkey and India.
This is one of those rare ideas that actually is a win-win scenario. The more opium that is produced legally for production of morphine or other legal opiates, the less heroin gets produced, at least in Afghanistan. It frees up combat forces from bombing and destroying farmer's crops to fight the real enemies, plus it doesn't make those same farmers into enemies. And if the Afghan government can tax the opium crops and (legal) drug production, it gives them the money to go about those reconstruction projects they don't have the money for. At the same time, the loss of the heroin revenue hurts the insurgents we/re supposed to be fighting.
Its such a simple and brilliant solution that I'm sure the US will either ignore it completely or find a devilishly clever way to screw it up.
