Drugs

[rcmatthews]

So based on this

When it's drugs, it's stupid and useless to go after the suppliers in South America, Asia and the Middle East with crop eradication programs or anti-guerilla "wars". It's all about the "demand side". But when it's kiddie porn, it's all about the supply side" again, because obviously only those producing the product are worthy of targeting?

I wish people would show a little consistency now and again...

I had an interesting idea. Apparently 90 percent of all opium poppies are produced in Afghanistan, which according to a few sources (Washington Post, Wiki) is a 2.6 billion dollar a year industry. Now, if the US government really wanted to put a huge dent in heroin, why not pay the drug growers in Afghanistan twice this amount and buy up the whole opium crop and burn it?

[fences_like_a_lemur]

I had an interesting idea. Apparently 90 percent of all opium poppies are produced in Afghanistan, which according to a few sources (Washington Post, Wiki) is a 2.6 billion dollar a year industry. Now, if the US government really wanted to put a huge dent in heroin, why not pay the drug growers in Afghanistan twice this amount and buy up the whole opium crop and burn it?

Because we are already spending all of our money on the War on Terror...and because the drug dealers would just move and grow more crops and expect us to pay them again. It's like if you feed a wild animal; once you start feeding it, it will start expecting you to keep feeding it and if won't leave you alone until you do...also, if the government won the War of Drugs, then they wouldn't have as many topics to argue about and it would ruin their fun. So pretty much I just have one word for you: conspiracy

[TrainingDummy]

What we should do if we really want to starve them of money is legalize opiates here but keep strict penalties from those who import it from Afghanistan. Of course, I 'm for all drug legalization.

[rcmatthews]

Well see my thinking is that if you could buy up 90 of the world poppy crop, there would be virtually no heroin on the streets. Thus, no way to get a fix. Forced drug rehab

[TrainingDummy]

Well see my thinking is that if you could buy up 90 of the world poppy crop, there would be virtually no heroin on the streets. Thus, no way to get a fix. Forced drug rehab

It's kind of hard to buy out a crop, although I'm not sure how hard poppies are to grow. Something that can grow out of the ground in a matter of weeks would be quite hard to corner the market on.

[AndrewH]

I had an interesting idea. Apparently 90 percent of all opium poppies are produced in Afghanistan, which according to a few sources (Washington Post, Wiki) is a 2.6 billion dollar a year industry. Now, if the US government really wanted to put a huge dent in heroin, why not pay the drug growers in Afghanistan twice this amount and buy up the whole opium crop and burn it?

I can think of a few things wrong with that.

1. Federal, state, and local police departments would get less money for drug operations. They would not be happy campers.

2. Speaking of police departments, they make lots of money from auctioning off seized assets from drug stings. Less heroin busts would mean less money for those departments, and once again they would not be happy campers.

3. Even if all poppy production in Afghanistan was eradicated, someone somewhere else would grow them instead. With 2.6 billion on the line someone is sure to pick up the slack. High market price creates incentive to supply, and you bet the market price would skyrocket after a negative supply shock like that.

4. Paying the poppy growers isn't as easy as it sounds. Apart from the fact that you'd have to find all of the poppy growing operations in a vast and isolated country, you'd also have to track down exactly who owned what- they aren't exactly keen on business records in Afghanistan.

4b. Those growers are selling directly to the organized crime groups who run the labs that convert opium to heroin. They will go to any lengths to protect their valuable asset. Killing a farmer who sold to the US gov't instead and replacing him with someone more "loyal" isn't a problem at all.

5. The CIA has been implicated in supporting drug sales and importing cocaine into the US. What makes you think that they would take a potential revenue source like 2.6 billion dollars worth of heroin and burn it? Versus say, allowing its production and sale and taking a share of the profits for looking the other way?

[fences_like_a_lemur]

As I said, the cops are in on a conspiracy because without drugs they wouldn't make much money and they would lose their jobs...so they don't want to win.

[pigeonmeister]

This has been suggested many times. It's actually been done in Turkey and India, so it's not that wild an idea.

From November 2001

http://opioids.com/afghanistan/allies.html

To a very recent petition (there very trendy here in the UK now)

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/opiumfields/

A British MP (Andrew Selous) has also asked for the crop to be used around the world in its various medical guises (i.e for pain relief)

In fact, the plan is flawed, the US has looked very closely into it but the numbers don't add up. The narco-economy right now is about $2.8billion, or a third of the total Afghan economy. The Counter-Narcotics Trust Fund has only $80 million in it right now. If you were to buy out the crop, as some have proposed, you'd need $2.8 billion to do it. Nobody has that kind of money.

Even more importantly, at the moment only 8-9% of the population are involved in poppy cultivation. If the US starts handing out billions of dollars, then obviously people are going to go where the money is and then you'd need 10, 20, 30 billion dollars to buy them all out.

[Teme]

Or, with the powers of genetic engineering, you create a fungi or germ that attacks only poppy. That way you can anger cops, growers, criminals and environmentalists...

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


In what way would a buy-out scheme be better than high-altitude crop dusting with a herbicide which goes only after poppy? The dusting plane could be a drone, or remotely operated. Sure, some poppy would survive, and the growers could choose to grow smaller fields. However, in both cases one would have made life harder for them, and the total drug output would decrease.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[jBirch]

I always thought that poppy eradication was a red herring. Why not just ignore it and let Afghanistan legalise & tax it?

James.

[AndrewH]

I always thought that poppy eradication was a red herring. Why not just ignore it and let Afghanistan legalise & tax it?

James.

Well the issue is that Afghanistan isn't consuming all that heroin, it's exporting it to the US and other countries where the government doesn't want it.

Hi!


In what way would a buy-out scheme be better than high-altitude crop dusting with a herbicide which goes only after poppy? The dusting plane could be a drone, or remotely operated. Sure, some poppy would survive, and the growers could choose to grow smaller fields. However, in both cases one would have made life harder for them, and the total drug output would decrease.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

The US sponsers just such an operation in Colombia to go after coca plants. It has obviously put a HUGE dent in the cocaine supply here

[Phaeton]

I really don't see where the US has the right to go around destroying international crop without a UN resolution: and something giving any country the authority to do that probably woudln't pass. People aren't like the States, and people don't like unilateral attempts to destroy crops. Even destroying crops of an occupied country such as Afghanistan instead of one like Columbia would raise international outcry.

Going after the suppliers always works far better, but it's very hard to do that within the framework of international policy. If the best we can do is grab the users and some middle links in the chain in then so be it from a regulation standpoint.

We've bigger battles to fight back home if we choose to continue to keeps drugs from legalization. I don't know the numbers, but I'm pretty sure there are far more meth users than there are opiate users: and one of them is being made in our backyards releasing a number of unsavory chemicals and creating a serious fire hazard.

This of course, doesn't mean I don't support the legalization of drugs, which I do for varying reasons. Keeping things illegal doesn't really do much to solve things as things look right now.

[AndrewH]

We've bigger battles to fight back home if we choose to continue to keeps drugs from legalization. I don't know the numbers, but I'm pretty sure there are far more meth users than there are opiate users: and one of them is being made in our backyards releasing a number of unsavory chemicals and creating a serious fire hazard.

Precisely. Less than 2% of the US population has EVER tried heroin, and about .1% are regular users. It's not as big a problem as the media would like to make it out to be.

[achilles_heal]

Precisely. Less than 2% of the US population has EVER tried heroin, and about .1% are regular users. It's not as big a problem as the media would like to make it out to be.

well, first let me state that i agree with your ideas here. but, the problem with highly addictive drugs is as much about ancillary crimes to support the habit as it is about ruined lives/families etc.

average american is not that sympathetic to junkies, but is afraid of being robbed/mauled/stabbed whatever by crazed addicts when a crime like that occurs. it's not just the media. it's human nature. when one hears of a kidnapping, for example, by a non family member in a community, the whole group gets very panicky for quite a while even though statistically they are still quite safe.

legalization of relatively non-addictive, or at least easy to home produce drugs like cannabinoids is one thing. legalization of highly addictive and "processed" substances, with good possibility of OD to boot, is another. not that you are advocating legalization.

[AndrewH]

legalization of relatively non-addictive, or at least easy to home produce drugs like cannabinoids is one thing. legalization of highly addictive and "processed" substances, with good possibility of OD to boot, is another. not that you are advocating legalization.

Actually, I am. Take a look through this thread: Drugs!

[parrythis]

Well see my thinking is that if you could buy up 90 of the world poppy crop, there would be virtually no heroin on the streets. Thus, no way to get a fix. Forced drug rehab

What would actually happen is that you would drive the price up through the roof (supply/demand) and those that need it would be driven to new heights in what they would be willing to do to get the money to pay for it. Those that have access to that 10% supply would be put in "the drivers seat" in terms of pricing the product. Rights to specific territories in which to sell their product would become insanely competitive. In other words, limiting the supply would create a dramatic spike in crime.

Note - we have been through this before. Study the prohibition years and note what happened to crime.

"Those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it."

[jBirch]

Well the issue is that Afghanistan isn't consuming all that heroin, it's exporting it to the US and other countries where the government doesn't want it.

Does the same work with Americans? I mean, they get exported to all these other countries that no one wants them in. Can we just eradicate them?

*grin*

Just because the US doesn't want it, doesn't mean that Afghanistan doesn't want to grow it. Nor does it mean that the US is right to destroy it. It's the whole concept of "sovereignty".

James.

[I_luv_saber]

I fail to see how legalization of heroin and drugs like it will help anything. The fact that heroin is seriously illegal keeps a lot of people from trying it, IMO. Now legalization of marijuana is another story. One thing that happens so often, is that marijuana is seen by so much of society as such a horrible, horrible thing, that when they try it they think "Well, now that wasn't so bad, was it?". It's like losing your credibility... if the government says pot is so horrible and illegal, and it's not so bad, I wonder about something stronger.....

And when using your percentages, keep in mind, those are only the junkies themselves most of the time. You would not believe how many people are effected by it indirectly. Whether it's the family of the junky, the friends of the junky, the people the junky may have robbed to support his habit, etc. AND children of junkies are much more likely to become addicts themselves.

There's a few cents....

[AndrewH]

It's like losing your credibility... if the government says pot is so horrible and illegal, and it's not so bad, I wonder about something stronger.....

And if the government says heroin is so horrible and illegal, and it's not so bad, I wonder if they were just lying about everything?

And when using your percentages, keep in mind, those are only the junkies themselves most of the time. You would not believe how many people are effected by it indirectly...

The point I was trying to prove with the percentages is that less than .1% of the population has used heroin in the last 30 days (not necessarily "junkies" or even addicts for that matter, just used in the last 30 days). The number of actual addicts is significantly smaller. Therefore, the actual danger to society that heroin poses is much smaller than what the media and government depict.