the real drug wars

heroin and the Taliban

So, as expected, we're busy pushing an interdiction strategy. There are several major factors at play.

1) The general illegal nature of opiates/heroin because of American dominated foreign policy on the issue of drugs. The relative value of the black market crops is disproportionate to any actual market value, and thus a major cash crop for people with no money and acreage to raise poppies instead of say, wheat.

2) The insistence of American farmers for subsidies leads also to the purchase of surplus crops for use in foreign aid. The result however is that where farms in Afghanistan were productive for wheat the wheat went un-purchased by American firms or government agencies (or international aid agencies). A record crop collapsed the price and basically broke the farmers who acceded to the demands of the American installed government. The ones that didn't then successfully purchased more land and acreage to disguise their less favorable productions. There was a major story on how famines in Africa could have been more readily supplied with Afghani wheat crops than waiting for Americans to get the boats over there, but American farm lobbies would have none of it.

The result of policies like these mean our foreign policy/farm trade policies result in far more conflict than is necessary internally in other nations who could otherwise produce more moderate quantities of narcotics alongside large quantities of more useful commodities, such as coffee or wheat. It's a messy business. As usual when our misguided sense of righteousness gets involved. So it's not surprising to see something like this in the story: "...Germany, Italy and Spain worry that a counter-narcotics campaign could spark a backlash against international troops". Because Europe tends to be more accommodating as far as narcotics traffic and criminalization goes (though they also have fewer problems with use). It looks to me like a waste of time. It would be easier to simply track the funds used by narco-terrorists than attack the production of drugs. The long-run would be easiest to make the violent defense of narcotic production less necessary and the result being that violent players get phased out and ties to violent organizations (such as al Qaeda) die out in a ploy for legitimacy in an international market.