Legalize and commercialize the Afghan poppy crop

By Stephen LaFrenie on 7 September 2007 - 11:34am

Legalize and commercialize the Afghan poppy crop, says May
http://www.greenparty.ca/en/releases/08.29.2007

"It's time to abandon the failed campaign to eradicate Afghanistan's poppy crops and adopt a new plan that helps the Afghan people earn a decent living while marginalizing the drug lords and warlords, Green Party leader Elizabeth May said today.
She called on NATO and the international community to endorse the Poppy for Medicine (P4M) project – licensing opium poppy cultivation for the production of Afghan-made morphine to be exported to developing countries through special trade agreements.
"How much more evidence is needed before we finally admit that eradication has failed?" asked Ms. May. "Opium production is exploding. The area under poppy cultivation is increasing year by year and Afghanistan now produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium. The drug economy represents half the country's GDP.""

These are a couple of good articles on the subject which shows things just aren't changing.
http://tinyurl.com/39ny82 Paul Salopek, Chicago Tribune, 26 December 2001

quote: "The UN's own research shows that many of the Northern Alliance commanders who dominate the interim government have long histories of growing poppies. And the deeply entrenched roots of the trade, whose immense profits in a poor land even corrupted the ultra-pious Taliban, are nowhere more evident than in hard-bitten villages such as Sorukh Road, which means red river."

Simon Jenkins - Kuwaiti Times September 2007 - http://tinyurl.com/2m7fck
quote: "The only way, repeat the only way, of curbing the heroin trade is by curbing demand. London's policy, shared with Washington, of trying to stop its people from consuming heroin and cocaine by disrupting the supply chain, was never going to work. It has merely made supply more profitable. It has been pursued for the cynical reason that politicians find it easier to blame some poor foreign country for a British social problem than to tackle that problem domestically. While Britons and Afghans are dying in Helmand, the budget for drug rehabilitation at home is pitiful even by European standards.
The visionary proposal of the Senlis Council think-tank, to buy the entire Afghan poppy crop, which some have been pushing for five years, must now be rated close to hopeless. The hope is that the UN could use the opium to meet a world shortage of morphine, in the same way as the Turkish and Indian crops are bought at present. The Afghans would thus get a fair and legal return for what they produce so successfully. After the invasion in 2001, poppy production was minimal and bulk purchase might have been worth a try. But the US privately allowed anti-Taleban warlords to start replanting and the proposal is now pie in the sky.
To buy the whole crop would be wildly expensive and logistically close to impossible. Without curbing demand, stemming one supply route would merely increase price and stimulate substitute supply from elsewhere."

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"To buy the whole crop would be wildly expensive ...

Submitted by Stephen LaFrenie on 7 September 2007 - 11:36am.

From the article quoted above. "To buy the whole crop would be wildly expensive and logistically close to impossible. Without curbing demand, stemming one supply route would merely increase price and stimulate substitute supply from elsewhere."

and yet, an unscientific look around in the past little while reveals...

Afghanistan poppy harvest jumps 18 per cent By Tom Coghlan in Kabul http://tinyurl.com/34b9g3
"Western officials in Kabul say drug farmers and smugglers work with corrupt government officials and the Taliban in a trade worth more than £1.5 billion - about 40 per cent of the whole Afghan economy."

http://tinyurl.com/yr9yjl
U.S. - "The transfer of power in southern Afghanistan will provide the first critical test of the new U.S. strategy. The shift will allow the Bush administration, which has spent more than $47 billion on military efforts in Afghanistan since 2001, ...."
Canada - "Ottawa’s response has been to increase military spending by $6 billion over the next four years." - http://tinyurl.com/3eyldq

Britain - "The Government insisted that the defence budget had increased in real terms since 2000, while £1.4 billion has been set aside to cover the costs of deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan" - http://tinyurl.com/29rsa2

Health Canada granted VCH a three-year operating exemption under Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and has provided $500,000 per year to support the scientific research pilot project. The BC Ministry of Health provided $1.2 million to renovate the former retail space, and provides operating funding through Vancouver Coastal Health. -- http://www.vch.ca/sis/faq.htm#qa7

So we can as western nations readily engage almost $60 billion dollars to arbitrarily kill tens of thousands of people, destroy infrastructure and a way of life plus ratinalize the logistics of maintaining that spending and fullfilling the mission but it is impractical to deal with a poppy trade estimated at roughly 3 or 4 billion dollars and supervised injection sites and other prevention/elimination programs that would cost less than a million dollars each if properly administered. Afghanistan represents 90% of the world's heroin trade? If that is all true would logic not say that we could buy out Afghan farmer's poppy crops and do whatever with it, destroy it after harvesting it, convert it to morphine or regulated drugs, thus choking off 90% of the supply plus increase investment in prevention/treatment plans at home in our respective countries and still not reach $10 billion dollars per year? Thus saving lives, both home and in Afghanistan plus $50 billion dollars in war costs, and have time to focus on whatever alternative economic solutions that would appeal to Afghans as an independent, unoccupied country.
I know my math is off but the theory is what I want to get across. Canadian political leaders have to change the way they think and the approach we take as a country.

This blog reflects my personal opinion.
It is not official Green Party Policy.

Nominated Candidate/Trinity-Spadina, Toronto
www.trinityspadinagreens.ca
http://stephenlafrenie.blogspot.com
www.twawareness.org

This blog reflects my personal opinion. It is not official Green Party Policy. www.departmentofpeace.ca

http://stephenlafrenie.blogspot.com

Poppies For Medicine (P4M)

Submitted by Eric Walton on 7 September 2007 - 4:19pm.

Stephen, take a look at the background paper for P4M - the link is in the Press Release.

The P4M proposal is to purchase the poppy extract at the farmgate directly from the farmers (at a cost of approx. I billion $ and not $3 or 4 billion) to produce foreign-aid subsidized medicine for pain relief in developing countries. The need is very great but the ability to buy these medicines is very low.

This arrangement would be separate from the current supply/demand market based system for morphine based narcotics.

Current eradication program costs approx. $ 500 million - 15% of Afghanistan's Foreign Aid Budget so the new foreign aid funds needed would be in the range of another $ 500 million.

Thanks Eric

Submitted by Stephen LaFrenie on 7 September 2007 - 5:09pm.

I'll go through the document more closely. I know my math and references were not accurate I just wanted to express my frustration with the concept that we can spend excessively on violent conflict without thinking clearly and not on alternative solutions that require less financial investment but more intelligent thought.