West urged to buy Afghan opium, not destroy it

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2188373.htm

LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Western countries should buy opium from Afghanistan and use it for medicinal purposes rather than soldiering on in a futile bid to destroy the poppy crop, a think-tank specialising in drugs policy said on Monday.

Western powers are wasting millions of dollars trying to stamp out the illegal opium trade, international think-tank The Senlis Council said. snip

Afghanistan is by far the world's biggest source of illicit opium and its refined product heroin, accounting for about 87 percent of global supply.

Production has risen to record levels since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Last year, a United Nations report said if nothing was done, Afghanistan could turn into a lawless "narco-state" run by drug cartels.

...unless morphine catches on as an over the counter Tylenol substitute.

. . . . this is called progress.

Seems to me that if there was an assured market for X tons of opium via the American taxpayer, the criminal market would still exist. So more opium gets grown. The law of supply and demand has not yet been repealed.

On the other hand, the current policy hasn't worked.

As a person with libertarian tendencies, my preferred solution would be to cease the war on drugs entirely. As long as someone's drug habit was hurting no one but him, the government should stay out of it, neither helping him nor hindering him. But any harm caused by the drug-user to other people should be met with draconian measures. Kill someone, even accidentally, while under the influence, it's first-degree murder, etc.

Besides, with Bush in bed with the drug industry -- I don't see anything but status quo on the horizon. A shame, ain't it?