Or they could, you know, legalize it.

any details on what that money for the eradication programs actually buys? is it for those dea airplanes and tricked out robocops? gonna be a lot of pissed of bullyboys out there; programs advancing crop alternatives aren't nearly as boner-inducing as terrorizing local farmers.

it's good (and way past time) to see this policy shift.

I always thought South American eradication efforts were just a way to funnel money and military equipment into the hands of us-friendly regimes.

We can file this policy chagnge under, 'obvious,' which becoming rather a fat folder for this administration.

How dare President Obama change America's long held tradition of winning hearts and minds by dropping things on people?

Nothing but nothing gives people that sense of FreedomTM more than planes buzzing over dropping bombs or poison.

It's funny how the US constantly funds both sides of the wars we fight. The demand for drugs in this country provides money for both terrorist groups and the drug cartels. Then we spend huge amounts of money to stop drugs which increases the price (while having little effect on the supply) thus giving the drug runners and even more money to kill people with thus propmting us to spend more money to stop the drugs and so on and so forth.

What a great system we've set up.

ironically, there is a shortage of morphine in the less-developed world and many suffering patients whose lives could be improved by buying up this crop and turning it into medical grade morphine. Too logical, I guess.

So 93% of the entire world's heroin net the Taliban $50 to $70 million annually? Really? 93% of the global demand for heroin nets the local producers $50 million bucks a year? Wow. I know there are other operators, etc and the Taliban doesn't necessarily control the entire Afghan poppy crop but that dollar amount seems really low.

Legalizing heroin would resove only part of the problem. My best guess is that soy or corn would grow well there. A corn (Ethonol) cash crop would help as a segue for countries still deeply dependant on oil. Once alternates to oil supplant it the Afghans could use solar and wind development, or just continue to feed the world with their soy and corn crops.

Perhaps taming the Taliban would also help. Didn't we already do that once there? Oh, that's right. We shifted to Iraq for better targets. That Rumsfeld. What a brilliant strategist. What a great humanitarian. Can a Medal of Freedom be far behind? Oh, wait. Bushsit is out of power. Oh well. There's alays a chance at the Nobel Peace Prize. No, wait....

It's my understanding that opium is pretty cheap right at the fields (see Adso's comment). It would probably be pretty easy for the U.S. to buy up and burn 90% of it. That might not be popular at home, though.

Afghanistan will be Obama's Q!

Right. Buy it. At twice the price it's still chump change. Keep the fish happy.

It would be cheaper, if the U.S. would should just buy the entire crop, sell what it could to pharmaceutical companies and destroy the rest. The price the farmers sell their crop for is small, compared to the amount the Taliban and other middlemen (and ultimately retail dealers). It would also have the added benefit of establishing a good working relationship with farmers, making it easier to work with them in converting to other crops, hopefully for alternative energy feedstock.

Buying the opium crop and selling for medical purposes is not nearly as much fun as putting on your Ninja costume, or your way-gay green beret, and kicking some ass in the middle of nowhere.

Now if we ensure that our own farm subsidies don't make it impossible for those new crops in Afghanistan to compete in world or regional markets. . .

I know. Never Mind.

I’m certainly no drug expert (and arguably no economic expert either), but I assume market forces for heroin under current policy operate at equilibrium. Our current attempts at limiting supply have evidently proved ineffective. Why would alternative means to the same end produce different results in this case? Suggesting that the US enter the market as a buyer increases demand making the product more lucrative and drives supply in the wrong direction. Bribing farmers to reduce supply by introducing alternative crops without a corresponding drop in demand will have the same effect. Which leads me to wonder how the discussion went when this new policy was formulated. Is Afghanistan the only place the product can feasibly be produced? What if the Taliban behaved exactly the same way as any drug lord protecting his cash flow? If the alternative crops are to be fruit and nut trees, do you suppose the Taliban might negate years of cultivation with a bag of salt or relieve the crop of its owner with a swing of a sword? What, exactly, is the “problem� the USA is trying to “fix�? Control abuse of an otherwise beneficial drug? Eliminate a source of funding for an enemy? Is the object much different than a decades long “war on drugs�? How is that war going? Maybe a more pragmatic solution would be to flood the market with product and tax the damn stuff like we do with the alcohol and tobacco drugs. I’m of the opinion that people really don’t want the government wasting resources on protecting us from ourselves, and the people seem to be infinitely more creative than governments at implementing THAT policy.

The figures seem way too low. Also, the Taliban are seen as holy rollers, but they are just another gang of scumbag drug dealers. Looks like they won the PR battle there.

A waste of money? Since when has lack of money been a deterrent for Obama and his liberal allies? Just put it on the tab and worry about a later generation paying for it. And these are the clowns who chided Bush for spending too much money.

yeah, but, how much money did Knight Sanford take to Argentina?

Let me get this straight. The Taliban eradicated poppy growing in Afghanistan everywhere they could during the time they were in power. The Warlords in Afghanistan promoted the cultivation of poppies and used the money they made from it to fight the Taliban who were trying to eradicate the cultivation of poppies. Now suddenly the Taliban is profiting from the cultivation of poppies?
Something doesn't smell right in this story.

This just continues the war on the poor and middle class. Heroin supply goes up and the price goes down. It is cheaper and of higher quality and doesnt require a needle to use. More young people use and become unemployable, incarcerated or dead.

Since attempts to eradicate the opium crops didn't work, I would say this is worth a try. I wonder, though, if the farmers will be paid as well for growing beans and squash, or whatever Afghans eat.

This idea is so old it has whiskers. There is no crop that pays like opium, so we would have to subsidize other crops, and the debt president would make expensive promises we wouldn't keep, and the drug lords would behead uncooperative farmers.

http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=22060

Poppies generate about eight times as much income per hectare than wheat and requires less water and labour, according to the report. And poppies tolerate bad weather and drought better than do food crops.

The higher returns represent a lifeline for smallholders, on many of whom extended families of between 15 and 25 people rely for support.

''I hold just 2.5 hectares of land in Ghani Khel,'' says another farmer. ''The landscape is such that I cannot run modern agricultural machinery as the fields are divided in small portions.

''My 2.5 hectares of land earns me around 8,400 dollars a year if the opium production remains at 14 kilograms per hectare with a price of around 240 dollars per kilo. But production per hectare sometimes reaches 20 kilos. No other crop can really give me that kind of money.''

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