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Russia battles Afghan heroin intoxication single-handedly
Published: 12 October, 2009, 13:25
Edited: 03 October, 2010, 07:41
Next to nothing is being done internationally to tackle drug production in Afghanistan. Russia is taking a stand against the opium flow from Asia alone, states Russia's Federal Drug Control Service Head Viktor Ivanov.
The ONLY way to fight drug trafficking is to make it legal; but the US would NEVER allow that since it is their business. Make it legal and drug smuglers will not have the resources they now have. Punish consumers by denying them social welfare, access to insurance, public education, and other benefits. Let's see who buys drugs after that.
I strongly disagree with the slippery slope argument. There is no study not funded by the DEA that shows one drug will lead you into another. Taking it to its extreme, caffeine leads to nicotene leads to alcohol leads to weed leads to....so let's ban any and ALL narcotics as both alcohol and caffeine have addictive properties. Tobacco and alcohol kills more than any other narcotic combined. Yet they are legal. They are addictive. The attempts at alcohol prohibition failed miserably in Canada and the States. If anything, the Netherlands is a great example of what regulation would do. Otherwise, bang up article.
The US/NATO side have failed in this issue. The Taliban identified this as a weakpoint in NATO strategy and have switched from seeing heroin production as a crime worthy of a death sentence to being openly supported, with the Taliban taking revenue from the trade. The West were going to provide financial support to farmers to encourage switching away from poppy production - this has not happened (at least, not enough). The consequence is that farmers see poppy production as the only viable means of supporting their families, as nobody pays them enough to grow food. The second part of the plan was to destroy poppy crops - but without first providing the incentives to switch, this is seen by the military as the ideal way to encourage support for the Taliban - so they won't do it.