Afghanistan's Drug Problem

[JMA]

So you destroy the crop... then what?

Then you will have achieved an important victory by effectively cutting off the Taliban from a significant source of funding.

Then if those who are wringing their hands over the loss of income the farmers will suffer then they can prevail upon the US government to compensate them for their loss of earnings and start programs to assist them to grow alternative crops. (You know what? The US government would probably be dumb enough to shell out a few billion per year over the next few years for just that purpose - if China will lend them the money)

Of course the warlords/druglords would by now be beside themselves over their loss of future income and are likely to become belligerent... so as this had been anticipated and number of carefully targeted night operations or drone strikes would have been carried out to remove these individuals from the scene.

The users are still there, they want the stuff really badly, and they are willing to pat for it. Reduce supply, and the price goes through the roof. That makes production even more attractive, and makes producers all along the supply chain even more willing to take risks. So you have to do it all over again next year,and the year after, ad infinitum, and while you're doing it people in every other potential poppy-growing area on earth fire up to get a piece of the profit.

If we've learned anything from decades of trying to suppress coca production in Latin America, it's that as long as the demand is there and the profits are large, somebody will find a way to meet the demand.

Trying to control the drug problem by focusing only on supply looks to me like wading deeper and deeper into the swamp, and heaping more and more endless responsibilities on the people in the field.

OK, there will be some knock on effect on the global market. So in conjunction with the international agencies they would, one supposes, develop contingency plans to mitigate against an upsurge of poppy cultivation in other areas.

You continue to miss the simple fact that there is an opportunity here to take out 90% of current world opium production.

There has got to be a reason why this opportunity is not being seized. I will money on it that you won't like the answer when it finally comes out in the wash.

This of course is true: fifty years or more of idiotic policy leaves a legacy that is not going to be unraveled quickly or easily. Shouldn't it be easier, though, to unravel our own corruption and our own counterproductive laws and habits than those of Afghanistan, or any number of others? Trying to control our drug problem in Afghanistan, Columbia, Mexico etc has a superficial appeal, in that the most visible impacts, including the worst of the violence, are imposed on people in other places. Ultimately, though, we end up relying on governments that don't share our interests, concerns, or priorities, or else trying to undertake governance functions in other countries on our own, which is the last thing we want to do. At least if we face our own problem on our own soil, we have our own laws to work with, and any resistance is ours to manage. Of course there will be costs and troubles as well, but that's fair enough: it's our problem after all.

Well one has to start somewhere and it could be making the most of the opportunity to reduce opium production by 90%... and again in concert with this one would expect a number of contingency plans to be worked out to cater for both expected and possible un-expected consequences.