Afghanistan Drug Problem

[Nickosx]

Morning all,

As I was having me coffee this morning I was watching Sky News and in the build up to the conference about afghanistan there was a reporter talking about the drug problem.

He started off by saying that "70% (or so cant remember the exact amount) of there overall exports is from the poppys, and when british troops go in to destroy all the poppys there are going to be some nasty people with guns and they wont be happy!"

YOU THINK. I thought

Then he continued by saying that because we are trying to get rid of the illegal drugs trade in afghanistan that it is then the responsibility of the british government to find all those people who work in the drugs trade something else to do!!! Because they will be angry at us and we have to make them happy.

Personally I hate drugs and anything to do with them and the fact that this reporter wanted to make people in the afghan drug trade happy makes me blood boil.

Anyway thats my rant for this morning. What do you guys think?

[longrifle]

I'm all for fighting drugs but most of the time it's a finger in the dike approach. Treatment programs sound nice but often aren't much better.

The way to really stop the supply is to remove the demand.

You're not going to come up with a government program to do that.

You're not going court order it either. I've seen too many people sentenced to substance abuse programs that started using again.

Having parents involved with parenting would be a nice start for the next generation. For current users, barring a religious conversion, hardly anything works.

You can laugh, roll your eyes, or get mad at that last statement. You think that a board like this is not the place for a statement like that. The thing is, nothing proposed by anyone with a PhD after their name has produced any better results, if any results at all.

But the thing is you can't legislate, mandate, or court order a change of heart about spiritual matters either. It happens or it don't.

But whether a society solves it's social ills or not, it shouldn't have to compensate someone for not breaking the law.

I'm not posting this to provoke anyone. I'm posting it because I think it's true. I expect there will be disagreement.

[Nickosx]

Sorry,

But my post wasnt really about sorting out the drug problem. It was more about the attitudes of the reporter and which I feel is shared by a lot of the british people. I should have placed more emphasis on that.

I just dont understand why people believe we have to be nice to to all these drug barons/dealers etc this includes terrorists. People just dont understand the effects of all these kinds of people. But im sure they would think differently should they have drug dealers etc on there doorsteps, but as these things happen in a diffferent country people think it doesnt matter and that britain shouldnt get involved!

[Artist]

It's just a damn shame that they can't get the Afgan farmers to continue to grow the Poppies but instead of flogging the Opium to the Drug Traffickers get them to sell it to the Big Drug companies. So they won't make as much money but at least it will be a regular income.

Lets face it Morphine and all it's offshoots come from the Opium Poppy as well as heroin. the Afgan Farmers have grown nought else but the bloody Poppy for yonks.

The land is suited to the growing of the Poppy. What the hecks the point of getting them to grow stuff like Carrots and suchlike. I can't think of anyone who is going to spend a fortune on a pound of Afgan Carrots in the local supermarket. Can you?

Artist

[Nickosx]

Good idea Artist,
I have never thought of anything such as that, but if you expand that idea i cant think of anything useful you can do with all the cocaine and such that comes out of columbia etc.

[Artist]

Ref your last nickosx.

I presume it must have it's uses within the medical profession. Dentists in the 19th Century used it as a pain killer I think. But don't take my word for it. Someone like Doc or Ruth or Marina would have a better understanding of it's uses in medicine.

Artist

[Ruth]

You're right Artist, cocaine does have various medical uses. I've used it (on patients ) in ENT surgery to constrict the blood vessels in the nose before the actual incision and it also acts as a local anaesthetic. I don't know of any other current uses myself, as I think it's been replaced in a lot of areas by less toxic alternatives.

There's actually a national shortage of pharmaceutical grade heroin (diamorphine) at present, so maybe there's an opening for manufacture?

[Damolee]

Hi there, ....newbie saying hello , but just had to reply to this.

I'm still a Civilian, and Heroin or any harshly addictive mind altering substances are a nuisance and threat, devoid of a conscience and do anything for a hit, I say the substance itself, but folks become one with it.

Try negotiating with a smack whos got a knife to your throat on a Saturday night and your find that there's a problem and no level of Liberal thought will save them. Terrible illness...

Burn all that crap, keep it well away from here or anywhere.
Been cases of kids asyoung as nine being hooked on the stuff, and alot pointing towards Afghanistan being the focal point.

[Paratrooper01]

The British Army is not going to Afghanistan to burn the poppy fields or arrest the farmers. FACT.

We need local support, and we are not going to get it if we piss them off by killing their income. As for the drug lords who cut about thinking they own the place, thats a different story. We expect strong resistance from them and the Taliban and we are prepared to counter this.

I am all for the poppies going to Drugs Companies so they can develop it for medicinal use, because it will keep it off the streets where it is doing so much damage to our country.

[Damolee]

The British Army is not going to Afghanistan to burn the poppy fields or arrest the farmers. FACT.

We need local support, and we are not going to get it if we piss them off by killing their income. As for the drug lords who cut about thinking they own the place, thats a different story. We expect strong resistance from them and the Taliban and we are prepared to counter this.

I am all for the poppies going to Drugs Companies so they can develop it for medicinal use, because it will keep it off the streets where it is doing so much damage to our country.

Yeah, too right.
Suppose if the Drug Lords were offered legit avenues of income for their produce they might be open to negotiation. Med Companies would snap it up. They are afterall businessmen, although I suspect some pillaging the West with Smack as a means of a fight in some sense.

[Ruth]

I'm still a Civilian, and Heroin or any harshly addictive mind altering substances are a nuisance and threat, devoid of a conscience and do anything for a hit, I say the substance itself, but folks become one with it.

Burn all that crap, keep it well away from here or anywhere.
Been cases of kids asyoung as nine being hooked on the stuff, and alot pointing towards Afghanistan being the focal point.

From my point of view I use a lot more heroin and morphine to improve people's lives than I treat the consequences of the abuse of the illegal stuff, although there's plenty of that and it's a long way from pretty, never mind the problems it causes outside the medical field.

But there's also a big difference between people needing to make a living to feed their kids, growing what they have grown for generations, and the drug masters who want a load of money and power.

[dwarfy]

I read this today and i,m still not sure where i stand.Obviously on a simple basis, it would be great to rid afghanistan of its drug trade, but the whole question is what do you replace it with? People have to earn money to survive. I just hope we have a plan of action for giving the Afghans a different source of income if we take away the poppy farming, or it will bad news for both the people of afghanistan and our troops that are soon to be deployed there. Its a very complex issue, i just hope we have a better plan for the future here than it appears we had for iraq.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... afg129.xml

Dwarfy,

[Contractor]

Funny old world, when the Taliban were in power the output of heroin in Afghanistan decreased dramatically as they considered it against their 'teachings'. They used severe methods to repress the poppy production and volume was said to have decreased by 95% on previous levels.

We now go in with the remit according to the Defence Secretary to crush poppy production and extinguish the supply of heroin from Afghanistan, as I said, a funny old world.

[Tab]

There are two options here, one the crop could be purchased by the British Army. Second is that that they could pay them for what they normally get for the poppies on the understanding that they grew food rather than poppies., and that they could keep the difference. From the amount the drug barons pay these people it would cost very little

[harry hackedoff]

That`s the sensible way Tab. Pay them stacks more. The savings in the west would be astronomical.
I recently had speaks with an Afghan person, and a very interesting conversation it was too. Which surprised me
Especially since 50% of the input was from me