UK Times: Ruined Poppy Farmers Join Ranks With Taleban

<a href="http://www.macleans.ca/homepage/magazine/article.jsp?content=20070226_102276_102276">http://www.macleans.ca/homepage/magazine/article.jsp?content=20070226_102276_102276</a>#<br />
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"Afghanistan's illicit cash crop may be the key to finding peace"<br />
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"Over the coming weeks, poppies will not be absent from the debate in the House of Commons surrounding Canada's mission in Afghanistan. Last month, Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of the Senlis Council, a Europe-based, independently funded think tank that advocates licensed poppy cultivation in Afghanistan for medicinal use, met with MPs in the ramp-up to opening his organization's first Canadian office. It is odd that the council's arrival in Ottawa has been so long delayed. Established in 2002 by Norine MacDonald, a Vancouver lawyer, it has deep pockets and well-connected friends."<br />
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Mr. Harper endorse's "reconstruction" in Afghanistan, as being every bit as important as our militsry presence, and has dumped quite a few hundred million into this effort. If he is willing to bend the Conservatives otherwise unyielding stance over drug production, in order to facilitate his Afghanistan policy, will he then be as willing to re-consider the medical efficacy of marijuana in this country?<br />
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<p>---<br>"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." <br />
-Max Planck<br />
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Afghanistan Opium Crop Sets Record <br>U.S.-Backed Efforts At Eradication Fail <p>By Karen DeYoung <br>Washington Post Staff Writer <br>Saturday, December 2, 2006; Page A01 <p>Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday. <p>In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year -- for a total of 5,644 metric tons -- the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent. <br><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/01/AR2006120101654.html?nav=rss_world/asia">Poppy production Up!</a> <p>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: <br>Friday, November 19, 2004 CONTACT: Tom Riley / <br>Rafael Lemaitre 202–395–6618 <br>ESTIMATED POPPY CULTIVATION IN AFGHANISTAN <p>(Washington, D.C.)—The annual U.S. Government estimate for opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is complete and shows that approximately 206,700 hectares of poppy were cultivated during the crop season in 2004. Current cultivation levels equate to a potential production of 4,950 metric tons of opium. This represents a 239 percent increase in the poppy crop and a 73 percent increase in potential opium production over 2003 estimates. <p>These estimates are based on a scientific sample survey of Afghan agricultural regions conducted with specialized U.S. Government satellite imaging systems. Adverse growing conditions are the principal reason why the percentage increase for potential production is not proportional to the increase in cultivation. <br><a href="http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/news/press04/111904.html">2004 Poppy Production</a> <p>Milton.... The Taliban government was the only government that caused poppy production to decrease significantly and since the US invasion poppy production has only gone up.

What I would like to know is that, if Afgh. is under foreign occupation, the government has no powers to speak of outside Kabul, who is buying that lucrative poppy crop, how is it being paid for, with what currency and how is it being transported out of the country on roads allegedly controlled and patrolled by NATO ? Also, where is the stuff going to and where is it processed?

We're talking here of large shipments, not some streetcorner dealers and basement labs.

How do they get away with it, without the occupation powers knowing about it?

Ed Deak

Good point Ed. With air surveillance looking for the crops, road checks stopping vehicles, just how is the product being moved? Some of the fields are in remote areas where only animal traffic is possible. Yet, a convoy of mules and horses would easily be noticed. If the mule train was successful, then the opium would require labs and obviously a means to leave the country. The labs could be caves and the borders of Afghanistan still has openings not patrolled. Even so, one can't imagine all can be done without some sort of protection.

Now we have those "in charge" trying to think of ways to make the drug crop legal. The western world created the mess or met it unprepared and still trying to tell us what good they are bringing to the middle east. Well, at least the west can send in more troops, cause more devastation and slaughter a few more, to make up for it. Oh yes! Build a few schools for the orphans as well.

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Expect little from life and get more from it.

The CIA has a history of preferring criminal drug lords. With the advent of Cambodia/Vietnam - Heroin becomes a problem in the US. With the advent of Nicaragua - Coke becomes a problem.<br />
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The CIA dealt with Albanian drug-lords to provoke the Kosovo problem. In Afghanistan, the CIA preferred to deal with drug lords (instead of 'legitimate' political leaders) to fight the USSR.<br />
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I did a little piece on this:<br />
<a href="http://bracewell.livejournal.com/29617.html">http://bracewell.livejournal.com/29617.html</a><br />
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The master in this field is Alfred McCoy:<br />
The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (Paperback) <br />
by Alfred W. McCoy "AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II, THERE WAS A STRONG CHANCE that heroin addiction could be eliminated in the United States..." <br />
AT: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556524838?v=glance">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556524838?v=glance</a><br />