This article was originally published by Brian Cloughley at Strategic Culture Foundation
On November 5 yet another US soldier was killed by a member of Afghanistan’s military forces, as the country continues to be wracked by violence in its seventeenth year of war.
Donald Rumsfeld was US Secretary for Defence from 2001 to 2006 under President George W Bush. They, along with other psychotic figures such as Vice-President Dick Cheney, were responsible for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and their legacy is apparent in many spheres, one of which is the drug production bonanza in Afghanistan.
In August 2004 NBC News reported Secretary Rumsfeld as declaring “The danger a large drug trade poses in Afghanistan is too serious to ignore. The inevitable result is to corrupt the government and way of life, and that would be most unfortunate.” He issued the warning that “It is increasingly clear to the international community that to address the drug problem here is important for the people of Afghanistan.”
Rumsfeld, for once during his catastrophic years as chief war-maker, was absolutely right, and his pronouncement about likely danger and impending corruption was spot on. The US invasion and subsequent operations led to Afghanistan becoming the fourth most dangerous and fourth most corrupt country in the world.
The “drug problem” to which he referred has expanded rapidly over the years. It is destroying Afghanistan. It is a main reason for the place being ungovernable.
It’s all very well to blame Afghans for growing poppies and producing opium and heroin, but what they are doing is meeting international demand. After all, there would be no drug industry in Afghanistan if there wasn’t a welcoming market in the drug-loving prosperous West — although it has to be noted that only about four per cent of its massive narcotics production ends up in the US, which gets most of its heroin from South America.
Mr John Sopko, the US Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), has just produced his latest quarterly report for the US Congress in which he observes that “From 2002 through September 2018, the United States has committed an average of more than $1.5 million a day to help the Afghan government combat narcotics. Despite this, 2017 poppy cultivation is more than four times that reported by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime for 2002, the first full year of US intervention in Afghanistan,” so there is small wonder that the country is “the largest source of street heroin in Europe and Canada.”
Mr Sopko observed that efforts to combat drugs “have cost US taxpayers more than $8 billion since 2002, yet Afghanistan’s opium crisis is worse than ever,” and the increase in the area and quantity of poppy cultivation has been impressive and depressing.
Washington is well aware of the shattering effects of Afghan drug production, but the SIGAR writes that “counternarcotics seems to have fallen completely off the US agenda. The State Department’s new ‘Integrated Country Strategy’ for Afghanistan no longer includes counternarcotics as a priority, but instead subsumes the issue into general operations. Meanwhile, the US military says it has no counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan, and USAID says it will not plan, design, or implement new programs to address opium-poppy cultivation.”
It is amazing that “The US military says it has no counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan.”
What happened to the campaign against drug processing that began in November 2017 when “US and Afghan forces launched a series of attacks on narcotics laboratories in southern Afghanistan”?
The massive aerial bombardment of ten drug-processing laboratories included strikes by some Afghan air force Tucano aircraft, but the main assault was by the US Air Force which for the first time in Afghanistan used its F-22 Raptor aircraft, flown from the United Arab Emirates. B-52 strategic nuclear bombers based in Qatar attacked targets, and F-16s joined in from the Bagram base near Kabul. The operation also involved KC-10 and KC-135 refuellers, every surveillance means that could be deployed, and command and control aircraft. This was a major — and very expensive — operation.
The commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, US General John Nicholson, told a news conference “We hit the labs where they turned poppy into heroin. We hit their storage facilities where they kept their final products, where they stockpiled their money and their command and control.” Not only that, but “The strikes that were prosecuted last night will continue… This is going to be steady pressure that’s going to stay up and we are not going to let up.” He said “the Drug Enforcement Administration estimates there are 400 to 500 opium laboratories across Afghanistan”. So after that first attack in November 2017 there were ten down and about 400 to go.
But SIGAR tells us in October 2018 that “the US military says it has no counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan.” Why?
There is nobody better placed to explain this than Mr Sopko, who had already observed that the Pentagon’s airstrike campaign against drug laboratories might not have the intended effect, as its “longer-term impact on narcotics remains uncertain.” Not only this, but “there is also the risk that air strikes could result in civilian deaths, alienate rural populations, and strengthen the insurgency.”
He was right on the button, because, as reported by The Washington Post, in January to June 2018 the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan “documented 353 civilian casualties, including 149 deaths, from airstrikes, a 52 percent increase from the same period in 2017.”
There is no doubt that these casualties alienate the rural population, given the example of one strike in July 2018 when the New York Times wrote that “Fourteen members of a family, including three small children, were killed when an American airstrike destroyed their home, several Afghan officials confirmed on [July 20]. In what has become a familiar litany, particularly in Taliban-dominated Kunduz Province, Afghan and American officials had initially denied that any civilians had been killed in the strike . . . claiming the victims were Taliban fighters. Then 11 bodies belonging to women and children appeared at the hospital in Kunduz City, about four miles from the site of the attack in Chardara District. The Taliban do not have women fighters and the children were very young.”
Time after time the US-NATO and Afghan authorities “initially deny” that there have been civilian deaths or casualties caused by airstrikes and are then found to be disguising the truth because there can be no denial of facts when shrapnel-ridden bodies of little children are laid out on the ground. Such absurd statements play right into the hands of the militants and, in the predictive words of the SIGAR, “strengthen the insurgency.”
This might explain why the massive and much-publicised air campaign against opium-processing facilities has been abandoned. But what happens now?
The US State Department and the Pentagon were told by experts that the narcotics problem was immense. For example, in a speech at Georgetown University in 2014 the SIGAR said: “By every conceivable metric, we’ve failed. Production and cultivation are up, interdiction and eradication are down, financial support to the insurgency is up, and addiction and abuse are at unprecedented levels in Afghanistan.”
Nothing has changed since then. The 2017 aerial blitz failed utterly, as have so many plans and operations to attempt to reduce narcotics production, and the US-NATO military alliance in Afghanistan continues to flounder in a quagmire of insurgency. The drug catastrophe is plain for all to see, and after seventeen years of war and expenditure of eight billion dollars the illegal narcotics industry is thriving.
Can this be indicative of the general level of competence of the US Department of State and the Pentagon? Can they get anything right?
***
Brian Cloughley is a British and Australian armies’ veteran, former deputy head of the UN military mission in Kashmir, and Australian defense attaché in Pakistan.
I don’t buy a word of it.
GTFOOH
I’ll bet they bombed NOTHING of any value. There is no way that opium poppies can be grown there in any amount W/O the US at least looking the other way if not actively (yet secretively) assisting. There are far too many US assets to see the fields. Dope = Corruption.
I believe non whites should not be allowed to have weapons.
I believe in gun control in big cities.
Try living in one.
THE BROWARD COUNTY SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS IS A BLACK WOMAN
WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE STOP DENYING REALITY
An interesting take on Afghanistan is mooted in this BBC documentary:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gyz6b
Ground Zero America Right now, Soros Unleashes 800 Antifa groups in American Cities. Hit groups. Will bring Civil wars / Martial Law and kill teams are coming. Got your BLACK BATTLE RIFLES ready to deploy? Get ready, SHTF is here. Civil war, Got Ammo?
ht tps://www.infowars.com/watch-live-soros-activates-900-antifa-terror-cells-leader-of-group-calls-for-the-killing-of-police-republicans-red-alert/?fbclid=IwAR1o8QRZA0k0AbaC7g1LxW38hy6dm4yCmLcYeRDm74PT
I believe the ANTIFA threat is way over hyped.
Soros needs to be arrested for domestic organized terrorism. Cut the head off the freakin snake already will ya.
Also as the saying goes, if you can’t hold it in your hand, you don’t own it. Just ask Venezuela trying to repatriate 14 Tonnes of Gold, back in-Country from England.
Article: The Bank of England Has Refused to Return to Venezuela Its Gold Held by the Bank for ‘Safe Keeping..
SAYS WHO?
However, the BOE has refused to release the precious metal, citing money laundering rules and the bank’s fear that Maduro will seize the gold, which is owned by the state, and sell it for personal gain. The BOE’s denial of Maduro’s request to return Venezuela’s property shows that if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it. Over 30 nations have gold holdings in BOE vaults. No gold for you! The Bank of England has refused to give Venezuela its gold back. Wait until you read the reason why
ht tps://needtoknow.news/2018/11/bank-england-refused-return-venezuela-gold-held-bank-safe-keeping/
England probably loaned and leased the gold out to paper shorters on contract paper, to suppress the price with paper shorts. Watch what happens when everybody wants their gold back including those on paper. Musical chairs and Gold will skyrocket. When the music stops and one chair is left, and a hundred souls with a piece of IOU Paper says they own gold, and they want it now……
Its like leasing an apartment out to a hundred people, and everything is all fine,…. until move-in day. And everybody has a paper Rental contract, same day.. and the sham artists will be strung up and beaten if caught.
Karma baby!!
TSB, what you’re saying should have already started on election day. The only reason it didn’t is because the Dems got back control of the House. They WON something so we’ve got a temporary reprieve on Antifa’s BS but it WILL still take place one day. So the next 2 years will see a lot of comedy coming from the House Dems.
Why are drug addicts always portrayed as being “victims”? I think the best way to help them is to stop helping them. They’re breaking laws too, so they should be treated accordingly.
The chicken shit always, always falls from the top down. Why Americans are fighting each other is beyond me. Stupid. Really stupid.
George Soros with his billions and organizations, and “Open Society,” and “Open Borders,” is directing these masked hoodlums to stalk Republican leaders and Trump supporters. That makes all these unelected rogue billionaires like George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos legitimate targets and fair game. That goes double for the wholly-owned corporate MSM.
You cut the head off, and the money off, of these anarchists and all this Globalist crap comes to a stop right quick.
HAPPY VETERANS DAY. Just remember….
“”Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
Voltaire, 1694 – 1778 “
The problem is nation building instead of war fighting. The farmer who is necessary for a normal Afghanistan grows the poppy for two reasons. One it is easier to grow than crops because it is essentially a weed. Two they are threatened by the insurgents if they don’t grow it because it is the main source of weapons money for the taliban. When I was last there in 2009 our Brigade AO had an agricultural reconstruction team made up of national guard guys from big farming states like Nebraska to teach commercial farming but the farmer has to be convinced that he will both make money that way and that his government can protect him from the insurgents. The military strategy was don’t mess with the farmer but track who receives the crop and go after them. As all muslims do the taliban puts all of their military assets in the middle of civillians guaranteeing collateral damage and propoganda victories. Bottom line, don’t get involved in nation building when their is no chance the people care about what you are selling them.
“The military strategy was don’t mess with the farmer but track who receives the crop and go after them.”
You’ll find that they’re not effectively going after “them” (us) on purpose. The CIA is in the dope business.
If they are they certainly aren’t holding people down and forcing them to be junkies. Like someone else said here, get rid of narcan and let the problem solve itself.
I have a flower garden in the landscaping. Deer eat everything I plant. I actually tried opium poppies, they are supposed to be not just disagreeable but toxic to deer.
Yes the deer ate them all, down to the dirt, slept it off and took a big crap in my yard.
Next suggestion?
Send North American white tail to Afghanistan to eradicate crops.
“Can this be indicative of the general level of competence of the US Department of State and the Pentagon? Can they get anything right?”
Gee Brian, are you REALLY this stupid?
sean, your credibility suffers when you misspell words and use bad grammar.
FO
Credibility comes from speaking the truth, not necessarily from how well you speak or spell.
The Taliban managed to stop the drug production
May, 2001
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/world/taliban-s-ban-on-poppy-a-success-us-aides-say.html
We even paid them nearly a half billion for their success.
Oh, right, we had to remove the Taliban (even though they hated Bin Laden) and replace them with the Narco Terrorist Pedophiles from the Northern Alliance so we could do “nation building”. We did let Osama get away into Pakistan.
I wonder how much of that heroin is in the veins of our youth here in the USA. How many have died from it? How many more will become victims?
During Vietnam, heroin was smuggled into the USA in the caskets of dead American soldiers.
_
Now thanks to the brave troops we have CIA-AIR just fly it in by the ton.
Solution is simple,
make Fentanyl freely available
and cut down on the availability
of Naloxone.
It is known as natural selection.
Rellik, you are absolutely correct. These”programs” and all the other taxpayer funded vehicles for addiction treatment simply do not work. They never have. My neighbor recently died from a heroin overdose His 7 year old son knocked on our door and told my son that he couldn’t wake his father up. My boy called me and I told him to turn on cartoons and fix the kid something to eat. I called the grandparents and they knew right away what happened. They called 911 and you know the rest. It’s so fucking sad. But it’s putting a huge strain on everything especially these little children. My thinkin is if they wanna use drugs, fine. Use them. But you get no help. Lose your job on a bad drug test? No public assistance for you. Break in someone’s home to support your habit? Get a free pass straight to fucking jail. No rehabs, no narcan, no help. Nothing. This, I think would be the best deterrent especially for people (young adults) who haven’t used drugs yet. Just my opinion.
That violates the Christian principle of making your brother stumble. Romans 14:13-23
They have “Narcan” to revive and sober up the heron junkies.
They need to develop “Barcan” for the barflies too drunk to walk so they drive. They’re more of a danger than some nodder.
And worse than that are the fuckin idiot dolts driving around texting! They have caused way more accidents than dopers and drunks combined!
There had been talk of the American forces leaving Afghanistan. Just talk as they have no plans to do so. Back when the US invaded that nation the talk was occupation past the year 2025. Iraq, Syria and Libya have been destroyed and are occupied also. Saudis building nuclear weapons plant so they say. Trillions spent on warfare while other large trillions of funds missing and apparently unaccountable. The peeps are deafening in their silent outrage.
This is total bullshit. We didn’t go to Afghanistan to combat drugs, we went there to take over the poppy fields and opium production for our Big Pharma cartels.
exactly ..the Taliban may have been brutal but poppy production was down 90% when they were in charge. The CIA are the biggest drug runners in the world.. and the most dangerous
Yeah because we know Osama bin Laden was a US intelligence asset and that he wasn’t killed by US forces as Obama and Clinton tried to shove down our memory banks. The official story still persists proving that lies are forever from this evil cabal calling the shots. Taken the ease of the manipulation so far the people seem powerless and falsely divided, distracted by fine tuned lying BS.
For many years the American CIA has make a large amount of money off these drugs.
Certainly since Vietnam with Air America. The CIA is in the heroin business. What is the worst part of it is that no one was held accountable thus it’s guaranteed to occur again. The simple reality is that the US Citizenry do not control the government that is supposedly theirs. Don’t take my word for it, its been studied at Princeton University and the conclusion is:
Major Study Finds The US Is An Oligarchy
h ttps://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4
Love him or hate him George Carlin was a political philosopher that said it the way it is.
h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o0RnuVjacI
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? “Who watches the watchmen”?
Juvenal
Drugs, gun running and murder operations are how the CIA deep state finances it’s illegal operations.
Trump took a bunch of these clowns out a year and a half ago, but they have resurfaced with a vengeance.
They don’t care how many American kids are killed by opium and heroine.
The deep state is aligned with the Marxist DNC and globalists. They go ballistic when a gun is used to kill a dozen people. They are ready to pull out all the stops and shread the constitution. Meanwhile the drug pushers are killing 50,000 Americans a year, and all we hear is crickets from those same lawmakers.
Kevin2, I have always blamed the CIA, at least in part, for our drug problems in the US. NOTHING they do is legitimate. Same goes for all government agencies. Even law enforcement and the courts are bogus. The “War On Drugs” here in the US has cost 1 TRILLION taxpayers’ dollars since its inception in 1973 but the drug problems have only grown worse. The CIA and other drug cartels are still doing just fine. I’ve always suspected it would be drugs more than any other single factor that will bring this country down and I’ve yet to see anything to prove me wrong.
Kevin2, BTW, I’ve always admired George Carlin for telling it like it really is. It’s a wonder TPTB never took him out.
The Deplorable Renegade
Free Speech is the vent for society. TPTB stop the conversion of Free Speech into organized effective opposition largely through infiltrating and then derailing the group. Free Speech allows the opposition to be identified; drive them completely undercover and the preceding cannot be accomplished. Walter Reuther the UAW leader came out against the Vietnam War and shortly after his jet crashed. Thats political speech / position that could have been translated into political action; things happen. TPTB are slick, the USSR were crude thugs by comparison. The trick is to maintain the illusion of self government while curtailing it in the Information Age; that’s no easy feat, with luck, impossible.
“…it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.”
— from Prov 31
To say that drugs are a detriment to society assumes that addicts are physically strong or have some socially-redeeming value, without the drugs.
Wachovia laundered 378 billion in dope money in 2010, were caught and the corporation (no individuals) pled “no contest” (same as guilty) to a FELONY (ever see a bank structure go to prison) and received a $160 million fine. Conversely you withdraw $9900 in cash of your legal, already been taxed money a few times and your charged with felony “structuring”. You on the other hand can go to prison and lose a lot due to a felony record.
h ttp://www.nbcnews.com/id/35914759/ns/business-world_business/t/wachovia-settle-drug-money-laundering-case/#.W-beSqeZORs
GTFOOH
Its all bullshit, 100% all of it.
The CIA is the biggest drug dealer in the world, and with ties to so many countries, moving the drugs is no problem using US Tax payer government aircraft or 3rd parties. This is how they create a black budget to create and finance global chaos. The CIA is not much different than the agitator Antifa. Just on a larger organized scale and the US Tax payer is footing the bill. End the Fed, End the CIA, End the UN, End all Foreign Aid. End the Global Crime. Protect our borders and get our house in order.
TharSheBlows
The CIA is the MAFIA for TPTB and interestingly the real MAFIA has worked for the CIA who work for TPTB. It’s a convoluted group that are all amoral. “The meek shall inherit the earth” Not while living. Good will triumph over evil. Don’t bet on that one either. Evil comes dressed as good but it’s still evil.
remember on 9/10/2001 when rumsfield said the pentagon couldn’t account for trillions of $$$$$. the accounting dept got “airplaned” the very next day. scum traitors, all of them
the only reason prohibition continues is to fund all of the cartels, legal and illegal. 13 years after the 18th was all it took to realize PROHIBITION caused far more chaos and destruction to society than the deadly, addictive, no medical benefit, gateway drug, ALCOHOL, ever could. yep, we sure have progressed.
Now that the USA presence is in Afghanistan instead of central/south america, opioids is the problem drug instead of cocaine like it was in the 1980’s and ’90’s. Tell me why we’re still there again?
“Tell me why we’re still there again?”
1. Rare earth metals.
2. A future oil / gas pipeline from “The Stans” to a warm water port.
3. A skirmish line between China and the Middle East oil fields.
The US is never leaving.
Some percentage of human beings are self-destructive.Drugs largely cause a rise in dopamine. In response, the body wants to get even more high so makes more dopamine receptors. This is the mechanism for addiction because then it takes more drug to get high and it will never end. It’s why there will always some weak folks prone to some form of drug addiction.
Since it’s illegal and so profitable, especially to banks who take almost no risks that are not within the USA, they will clean the drug money and then it gets adversely affects any number of businesses as it gets reinvested in America.
I cannot believe either law enforcement nor the military-industrial complex wants it to end as jt’s job security. As such, it’s part of the Theatre of the Absurd.
If drugs are legal, the morons will overdose and that’s one less addict. It’s the fact that theyare illegal that makes them expensive and causes addition crime like prostitution, burglaries, extortion, loah sharks, etc.
Nature culls the weak.
Sound like the Afghanistan people are embracing the free market and capitalism, although illegal free market.
“I’m responding to the will of the people”
Al Capone
I thought it was a stylish remark.
But, have you ever read the definition of a mafia. The state is a vital component; no market exists, without a market maker or a price fixer.
This film maker needs funding to get the message out about opioid addiction…
https://www.oceanboulevardfilm.com
Will my previous comment be approved?
I wonder if the russian people thought there was no way the Bolsheviks could defeat the Russian army and kill the royal family ?
Didn’t the Moros take drugs for suicide attacks? The movie , The Real Glory, with Gary cooper, is an excellent. Buckshot. And 45s ? Some say the 1911 is dead..? But name one other pistol that you can change the firing pin and extractor with a toothpick?
A SHTF caravan of 1000s coming through a neiborhood near you ? Isn’t that ten shot semiauto buckshot time? As Selco found out , ? small groups don’t last long?
Seems the dem house means there are a lot of hard core perverts that don’t care about all the hiring signs ? The Tipping Point is here?
fI don’t buy this story. Our soldiers were guarding those
fields since way back in 2000. Why???
Yes, those fields have killed, maimed and ruined all of
our society.
The mental case in the CA bar massacre was stationed
in Afghanistan. They are probably rewarded with drugs
making them loyal to the Afghani drug perverts.
Trying to detox from that crap will cause you to go crazy.
Now… about our government..
They make billions off the drug trade….they always seem
to retire with a billion or so bank accounts.
No military, ambassador, Contractor,
5 Star General or US citizen, makes that much from
our government…..unless there is some palm greasing
going on.
It is a fact that certain (((( people)))) were
shipping drugs and arms…. illegally.
I hope Trump busts this whole thing open.
Of course… the Rats probably have an arm twist
waiting for him…..for some stupid thing he did in grade
school.
Why does this site keep kicking out my comments?
Or holds them for days?
Is this site being monitored by CIA?
CIA operates as “Pinkerton” for the elites and money interests. They do little to nothing for America.
Why does this site keep kicking my comments out?
Is the CIA working this site?
I don’t buy this story. Our soldiers were guarding those
fields since way back in 2000. Why???
Yes, those fields have killed, maimed and ruined all of
our society.
The mental case in the CA bar massacre was stationed
in Afghanistan. They are probably rewarded with drugs
making them loyal to the Afghani drug perverts.
Trying to detox from that crap will cause you to go crazy.
Now… about our government..
They make billions off the drug trade….they always seem
to retire with a billion or so bank accounts.
No military, ambassador, Contractor,
5 Star General or US citizen, makes that much from
our government…..unless there is some palm greasing
going on.
It is a fact that certain (((( people)))) were
shipping drugs and arms…. illegally.
I hope Trump busts this whole thing open.
Of course… the Rats probably have an arm twist
waiting for him…..for some stupid thing he did in grade
school.
“certain (((( people)))) were
shipping drugs and arms…. illegally.”
Were any Gentiles, and should you be judged for that?
How about the “fire catastrophe” in northern and southern California. Politics don’t matter when your life is on the line.
I hope the administrator of this blog and all the contributors to it are safe from the flames.
It is easy enough to solve the drug problem. To much money in the wrong pockets is preventing it.
This goes back to the opium wars and the Yiddish Empire.
https://inpursuitofhappiness.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/the-sassoon-opium-wars/
The Neo-Con/Zionist dual-Israeli citizens and the Queen of England are the biggest heroin dealers EVER.
The U.S. military protects the poppy fields, the Afgani farmers harvest it, the U.S. military ships it out to CIA/Mi6/Mossad in Europe and it manufactured into heroin and sold throughout Europe and America to finance intelligence black-operations globally.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
This has nothing to do with George Soros and AntiFa…..
There is no “Drug Problem.”
There’s an America-the-Terror-State Problem,
just as there is an Israel-the-Terror-State Problem.
Eventually those problems come home to roost.
Just as they did when a Veteran with PTSD shot & killed the neighbors he could have been line-dancing with.
Happy Veteran’s Day ! /sarc
If Afghanistan is the “fourth most corrupt” country in the world, where do we rate?
Do we have people stealing, committing burglaries, prostituting themselves to get drunk? Of course not. Alcoholism is a major problem but there is no escaping it in a free society.
Now what is curious is, when you have to grow whatever it is that you use recreationally to ferment, then it takes so much effort that typically most do not bother. One can legally grow and cure tobacco and one can legally and easily ferment beverages. Heck one can even distill in small amounts allowing fortified wines and liquor.
The natural thing to do is create a policy on such plants. Immediately the profit drops and the average person who wants to grow their own…does so. And a few will start businesses.
The problem of addiction is created when the labor aspect is removed and it becomes a commodity. Not many would smoke tobacco is they had to grow and cure it; not many will drink wine when they must ferment it on their own…even with the ease of doing so.
The only other effective historical option is the Paraquat route which angers liberals…yet they are the subversives who benefit from drugs illegality, right?
The Pentagon and the federal government are behind the drug trade in Afghanistan. It explains why we’ll never leave there.