Why Pay Our Farmers to Produce Opium While Afghan Poppy Crops Are Razed, Asks Boris Johnson. We are nearing the end of the season for the big ornamental poppies that flower all over South Oxfordshire, the area I used to represent in parliament. The petals have fallen to the ground, pink and purple and red. But I expect the seed-pods are still standing tall. If you take a sharp knife to one of those seed-pods, and make a careful diagonal incision, you will see a white latex ooze out. What is that gunk? That is opium, my friend; and the reason there are so many giant poppies all over that part of England is that the seeds have been blown in the wind or carried in the guts of birds. They have come from the farms. We actually grow opium there, and we grow it officially. [continues 925 words]
Destruction of Crop Pushes Farmers into Taliban Hands In Canada, poppies are already associated with war -- or at least with remembering those who died in service. But this little red wildflower has a much bigger role in the continuing conflict in Afghanistan. The Taliban insurgency is fuelled almost entirely by flower power. Afghanistan produces 93 per cent of the world's opium, and 80 per cent of its heroin, both products of the poppy seed. Most of the money made from this illegal drug trade is funnelled into the Taliban and used to purchase weapons and train new members. [continues 565 words]
To understand why the war in Afghanistan, now in its eighth year, is not going well for the United States and its NATO allies, take a look at two statistics. One is Afghanistan's ranking on an international index measuring corruption: 176 out of 180 countries. (Somalia is 180th). The other is Afghanistan's position as the world's Number 1 producer of illicit opium, the raw material for heroin. The two statistics are inextricably linked and, a year ago, prompted Richard Holbrooke, the man President Barack Obama has just picked as special envoy for Afghanistan, to write: "Breaking the narco-state in Afghanistan is essential or all else will fail. [continues 804 words]
At the start of the Afghan war, the British government implored the Bush administration to bomb Afghanistan's heroin labs and opium storehouses. The United States refused. America's Afghan partners in the struggle against the Taliban were involved in the drug trade. They were crooked, but useful. In 2004, Afghan President Hamid Karzai declared a "jihad on the cultivation of drugs." Europeans guffawed. European intelligence had already named both the head of the Afghan Central Bank and Mr. Karzai's "anti-corruption czar" as "drug lords." And Mr. Karzai's youngest brother, Ahmed Wali, was named as a trafficker in early 2005 in U.S. intelligence documents discovered by CBS' "60 Minutes." In fact, there has never been a "drug lord" arrested in post September 11th Afghanistan. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in 2005 found more than nine tons of opium in the office of Sher Muhammad Akhundzada, the governor of Helmand Province. Under British pressure, Mr. Akhundzada was removed, but the next year, Mr. Karzai found a place for him in the Afghan Senate. [continues 854 words]
Afghanistan Need Small Loans To Grow Wheat An old man waits with his two sons outside of a United Nation's distribution centre on a scorching August day in Kandahar City. They have been enticed from the Arghandab district west of the city by the promise of a single bag of wheat to take back to their impoverished family. He says he arrived here at 8 a.m., but four hours later he, along with dozens of others, still doesn't have his wheat, and he's losing his patience. [continues 624 words]
Re: "Progress in Afghanistan," (Opinion, Aug. 26). Writer Robert B. Zoellick's arguments for the advancement of Afghanistan's infrastructure, particularly the health and education sectors, are to be commended. However, a vital component missing in Zoellick's argument and in the country's development program has been omitted; effective counter-narcotics policies. With more than three million Afghans currently financially dependent on poppy cultivation for survival, current U.S.-led policies aimed at addressing Afghanistan's spiralling opium production have not only proven unsuccessful but counter-productive. Forced poppy-crop eradication, a strategy that has failed to reduce poppy cultivation, while alienating local farmers and pushing them further into the arms of the Taliban, lies at the heart of the country's problems. [continues 97 words]
Almas Bawar Zakhilwal, an Afghani living in Canada, says the poppy eradication program in his country is a failure and stepping it up would only fuel the war. Canadian troops are not part of the poppy eradication program; it has been contracted out to DynCorp International, an American company, which also provides bodyguards for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. "Billions have been spent with no success," Zakhilwal said in a telephone interview. Zakhilwal is Canadian representative of the Senlis Council, a Paris-based organization which advocates licensing poppy production to make medical morphine. [continues 285 words]
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty's trip to Afghanistan throws the spotlight on the Taliban's drug trade. Keelty is sending 12 AFP agents to join up to 1000 international officers training the Afghan police in counter-narcotics. But the Pentagon's first post-invasion assessment of conditions in Afghanistan reveals that the Taliban killed 6500 people in 2007 (a post-invasion record), its funding base, opium production, "increased substantially" and that overall counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan have not been successful. [continues 728 words]
This week saw two rare pieces of good news in the war in Afghanistan. The first comes, like a German battalion, with multiple caveats -- Gen. Rick Hillier, Canada's top military commander and the single most powerful voice in support of the conflict, stepped down as chief of defence staff on Tuesday. Admittedly, Hillier's resignation is not cause to break out the back flips and pinatas. Canadian troops will have to endure the transition from Hillier's fiercely charismatic tenure and his replacement has some heavy boots to fill. [continues 638 words]
Re: We Need NATO Help: Manley, Jan. 23. The Manley panel correctly identified the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan by recommending that 1,000 extra troops be sent to Kandahar. However, NATO overall would need to double its ground troop capacity to 80,000 and remove all caveats of where troops are deployed, if it is to have any chance of halting the insurgency's momentum. Indeed, recent Senlis Council research indicates that the Taliban now have a presence in 54% of Afghanistan. [continues 118 words]
On 12 December, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, stood up before a packed House of Commons to outline his government's new approach to Afghanistan. This eagerly anticipated statement would, it was believed, herald a fresh approach to the country's opium problem. Unfortunately, the reality failed to match the pre-speech optimism. In fact, of an eight-page speech, counter-narcotics warranted a mere two paragraphs on page seven -- apparently the issue came as an unwelcome afterthought that deserved little more than an obligatory mention. [continues 766 words]
(1) TRYING TO BREAK CYCLE OF PRISON AT STREET LEVEL Pubdate: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company Author: Solomon Moore HOUSTON -- Corey Taylor, a convicted drug dealer, recently got out of prison and moved into his grandmother's house in Sunnyside, a south central Houston neighborhood of small, tidy yards. During his first days home, Mr. Taylor, 26, got a sharp reminder of the neighborhood's chronic problems. "Out of 10 of my partners, only one is doing anything different," he said, referring to his former drug-dealing companions. "I have some friends I haven't seen for 10 years because either I was locked up or they were locked up." [continues 6912 words]
The head of the UN's anti-narcotics unit has called on Nato forces to crack down on heroin production in Afghanistan -- a policy which contradicts proposals by the Brown government. Gordon Brown will propose paying farmers more than they earn from their poppy harvests in return for ceasing to grow the crop when he makes a statement to the Commons in the next few weeks on his strategy for winning over Afghans and curbing the influence of the Taliban. Thus far the British campaign to destroy poppy production has been an abject failure, according to the annual report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The biggest growth area is in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold, where British forces are fighting daily battles. [continues 412 words]
The "War on Drugs" is a cheap, race-baiting, election-year talking point for tough-on-crime demagogues, and everybody knows it. The money and talent we waste on this vapid struggle is bad enough. But it's now threatening to waste a lot of lives as well and doom our fight against theocracy and terrorism in Afghanistan to a humiliating defeat. Yes, it took five years of relentless lobbying, but the Bush administration has very nearly persuaded the reluctant President Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's embattled leader, to spray the country's illicit poppy fields with massive quantities of herbicides, The New York Times reported last week. [continues 621 words]
Using Afghan opium poppies for legal medicines is an interesting idea - -- but it would require real security The rather recently arrived, but amply funded, Senlis Council has released the latest of its broadsides, promoting its "Poppy for Medicine" project, while at the same time slagging Canadian diplomacy in Afghanistan. The striped-pants set probably shouldn't get their knickers in a knot though, since Senlis's treatment of CIDA and UNICEF was even more savage. In fact, a fast tour through the reported e-mail exchanges between the Senlis field wallahs in Afghanistan and the local offices of CIDA and UNICEF suggests it's unlikely that anybody in Senlis has ever read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People. [continues 635 words]
Crop a 'Menace' UNITED NATIONS - Canada and other countries agreed yesterday to back stepped-up operations to counter drug production in Afghanistan -- a move that some say will lead to Canadian troops being drawn into controversial drug-eradication and interdiction activities. At a high-level meeting on the country, Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier put Canada's name to a communique that expresses "great concern" at the expansion of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. The production of heroin-producing opiates reached a "frighteningly new level" last year, according to a recent UN survey, and Canada is among countries that say profits of the illicit drug trade are funding the Taliban and other insurgent groups. [continues 392 words]
Edward McCormick was meeting with an associate in Kandahar when a suicide bomber blew himself up just blocks away. The explosion was deafening and sent a strong wave of heat over the surrounding area. As the crowded Afghan street was engulfed in panic, McCormick said his initial reaction was not fear but grief. "I was not concerned and wasn't thinking about myself," he told the Georgia Straight . "It was a feeling of sadness and emptiness at that sudden loss of life." [continues 503 words]
AFGHANISTAN'S opium output has risen for another year, and with it the volume of the debate over solutions. On opposite extremes are the US government, which advocates a more aggressive, eradication-led approach, including chemical spraying, and the Senlis Council, which advocates the legalization of opium poppy cultivation to meet a claimed worldwide shortage of painkillers. While these proposals may satisfy a hunger to hear simple solutions, both would exacerbate the problem. Those advocating spraying claim that, largely due to corruption among government officials, all else has failed, and that a strong message must be sent to farmers. Yet, in an economy with an estimated 40 percent unemployment, it is not clear what would replace the one-third of Afghanistan's economy which would be destroyed. [continues 886 words]
(1) MINISTER RULES OUT PRESCRIBING HEROIN TO HELP DRUG ADDICTS Pubdate: Fri, 07 Sep 2007 Source: Scotsman (UK) Copyright: 2007 The Scotsman Publications Ltd Author: Peter MacMahon, Scottish Government Editor FERGUS Ewing last night firmly rejected growing demands for drug addicts to be prescribed heroin. The minister for community safety said the Scottish National Party government would instead concentrate on getting people off drugs. Mr Ewing's intervention came as the Scottish Parliament heard details of how prescribing heroin works in the Netherlands and one Nationalist MSP publicly advocated the idea. [continues 5935 words]
Prescribed Heroin For Long-Term Addicts Would Be A Better Way Of Reducing The Drug Trade, Says Steve Rolles This week's alarming UN reports on the Afghan opium crop, showing that it now accounts for over 93% of global illicit production, prompted much debate. A Guardian leader (The drugs don't work, August 27) acknowledged the futility of eradication efforts, but gave qualified support to the Senlis Council plan to pilot the licensing of Afghan opium production for medical use. [continues 436 words]
Thirty-eight million arrests, most for simple possession. Lives ruined, families disrupted. America turned into the most prison-happy nation on the face of the Earth. Illegal rewards incentivizing shooting fields in inner-city neighborhoods -- enough bloodshed to appall even an Al Capone. Over $1 trillion in taxpayer outlays. Thirty-six years after President Richard Nixon inaugurated this country's misbegotten "war on drugs," worldwide narcotics markets are booming, drug ring profits are higher than ever, and drugs cost less than ever on the street. [continues 685 words]
Obsession with drug mafias and addiction has blinded western governments to a chronic shortage of pain-killing opiates. Billions of dollars and ever-increasing budgets thrown at opium eradication and the so-called war on drugs have miserably failed to stem the global flow of narcotics. This year's record opium harvest in Afghanistan is 8,200 tons. Burma - still ruled by a brutal junta - ranks second. Years of narcotics repression targeting the producer countries has made no difference to the availability of heroin on the streets of London and Glasgow or cocaine on the streets of New York. [continues 1081 words]
Thirty-eight million arrests, most for simple possession. Lives ruined, families disrupted. America turned into the most prison-happy nation on the face of the earth. Illegal rewards incentivizing shooting fields in inner-city neighborhoods -- enough bloodshed to appall even an Al Capone. More than $1 trillion in taxpayer outlays. Thirty-six years after President Richard Nixon inaugurated this country's misbegotten "war on drugs," worldwide narcotics markets are booming, drug-ring profits are higher than ever, and drugs cost less than ever on the street. [continues 629 words]
Thirty-eight million arrests, most for simple possession. Lives ruined, families disrupted. America turned into the most prison-happy nation on the face of the Earth. Over $1 trillion in taxpayer outlays. Thirty-six years after President Richard Nixon inaugurated this country's misbegotten "war on drugs," worldwide narcotics markets are booming, drug ring profits are higher than ever, and drugs cost less than ever on the street. Our "war" is a miserable, incredibly costly failure. But now, we're learning, there's a jarring new dimension. The drug war is directly feeding international terrorism. The most startling new evidence comes from Afghanistan, where the U.S. is leading a full-blown NATO campaign to eradicate production of poppies, the plant from which heroin is derived. [continues 562 words]
U.S. Efforts to Eradicate Afghanistan's Crop Are Empowering the Taliban by Sowing Seeds of Resentment. Stepping onto the balcony of the governor's mansion in Uruzgan in southern Afghanistan, you quickly grasp the scale of the drug problem gripping the country. Beginning at the walls of the mansion and stretching as far as the eye can see are hundreds of acres of poppy fields ready for harvesting for opium sap, pretty much the only way to earn a living in poverty-stricken Uruzgan. [continues 1309 words]
Thirty-eight million arrests, most for simple possession. Lives ruined, families disrupted. America turned into the most prison-happy nation on the face of the Earth. Illegal rewards incentivizing shooting fields in inner-city neighborhoods -- enough bloodshed to appall even an Al Capone. Over $1 trillion in taxpayer outlays. Thirty-six years after President Richard Nixon inaugurated this country's misbegotten "war on drugs," worldwide narcotics markets are booming, drug ring profits are higher than ever, and drugs cost less than ever on the street. [continues 675 words]
It's easy to think that eliminating opium production in Afghanistan - -- which today accounts for 90 percent of global supply, up from 50 percent a decade ago -- would solve a lot of problems, from heroin abuse in Europe and Asia to the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan. I'm not so sure. The current dilemma for the U.S., NATO and the Karzai government is clear. The best way to reduce opium production in Afghanistan is with an aggressive campaign of aerial fumigation -- but that would cause massive economic dislocation and even starvation in a country where the opium trade accounts for roughly one-third of GDP. The second best, now under way, is manual eradication, but the result this past year was a net increase in opium production nationwide. Either way, these options play very much into the hands of the Taliban, who gain politically wherever farmers fear or witness the destruction of their livelihoods. [continues 638 words]
Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke candidly at the Third National Conference on Counter Narcotics in Kabul on Wednesday. Reiterating Afghanistan's commitment to fight the narcotics problem, and asking the Afghan people to do their share, he asked international stakeholders, the international community and countries of the region to do more to help stem opium production and crack down on the drug trade. Following the latest report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that shows a new high in opium production in Afghanistan for 2007, the President also asked the international community to expand its co-operation with the Afghan government. He said the fact that worldwide trade of opium is in the hands of the international criminal organizations necessitates joint international co-operation to combat it. [continues 526 words]
(1) NO 'SILVER BULLET' FOR AFGHAN OPIUM TRADE Pubdate: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 Source: National Post (Canada) Copyright: 2007 Southam Inc. Author: Mike Blanchfield, CanWest News Service OTTAWA - Britain's top diplomat in Canada has dismissed a poll, commissioned by the international think-tank that is championing the legalization of Afghanistan's contentious opium poppy crop, which shows that Canadians overwhelmingly support for the use of Afghan opium for medicinal purposes. "It is a surprise that people reach for silver bullets," British High Commissioner Anthony Cary said in an interview yesterday. [continues 7615 words]
Record Poppy Crops Show Eradication Effort Has Failed While Increasing Taliban Support Canadian support for the Afghanistan mission relies in part on confidence that it is being managed competently. A United Nations report showing a 34-per-cent jump in poppy production raises renewed doubts about the strategies being pursued by NATO. Afghanistan growers and labs supply 93 per cent of illegal opium in the world. The profits help fund the Taliban, while opium-related corruption in the police, military and governments undermines efforts to stabilize the country. It is a problem that must be addressed. [continues 365 words]
80% Support Project To Use Abundant Crop For Legal Pain Drugs A new poll commissioned by the international think-think that is championing the legalization of Afghanistan's contentious opium poppy crop shows overwhelming Canadian support for the proposal. The Ipsos Reid survey of 1,000 Canadians conducted on behalf of the Senlis Council found that eight in 10 want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to get behind an international pilot project that would help transform Afghanistan's illicit opium cultivation into a legal way of providing codeine and other legitimate pain drugs to the international market. [continues 195 words]
U.K. Dismisses Poll Backing Limited Legalization OTTAWA - Britain's top diplomat in Canada has dismissed a poll, commissioned by the international think-tank that is championing the legalization of Afghanistan's contentious opium poppy crop, which shows that Canadians overwhelmingly support for the use of Afghan opium for medicinal purposes. "It is a surprise that people reach for silver bullets," British High Commissioner Anthony Cary said in an interview yesterday. Mr. Cary was responding to the release of an Ipsos Reid survey of 1,000 Canadians, conducted on behalf of the Senlis Council, which found that nearly eight in 10 Canadians (79%) want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to back an international pilot project that would help transform Afghanistan's illicit opium cultivation into a legal way of providing codeine and other legitimate pain medications to the international market. [continues 356 words]
Senlis Council Calls For Nato Action On Soaring Opium Production The United Nations has no choice but to legalize Afghanistan's poppy crop after its latest study documented "frightening" new levels of opium production, the Canadian-led Senlis Council think-tank and the Liberal opposition say. Afghanistan's status as the world's leading supplier of the key ingredient of heroin remained unchallenged as opium production soared 34 per cent in the last year, according to the latest annual audit by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, released yesterday. [continues 397 words]
The Vast Increase in Opium Poppy Farming in Afghanistan Is Indicative of an Inability to Grasp a Basic Law of Economics The British government for sure knows how to do one thing. It knows how to help farmers in need. Since it arrived in Afghanistan in 2001 and was put in charge of the staple poppy crop, ministers have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on promoting it. On Monday the United Nations announced the result. Poppy production in Afghanistan has soared since the invasion, this year alone by 34%. The harvest in the British-occupied protectorate of Helmand rose by 50% in 12 months. This is a dazzling triumph for agricultural intervention. [continues 986 words]
Today, More Afghan Land Than Ever Before Is Used to Grow Opium-Yielding Poppies, and There's No Consensus on How to Stop It TORONTO -- Afghanistan's opium poppy cultivation has reached "frightening record levels" this year, according to a United Nations report - and much of the heroin is increasingly making its way into Canada. An RCMP report shows that most of the heroin seized here in 2005 originated in southwest Asia, specifically Afghanistan and Pakistan. And the director of the RCMP's drug branch in Ottawa told The Canadian Press this month that 60 per cent of the heroin on Canadian streets comes from Afghanistan. [continues 1328 words]
The UN reported on Monday that there had been a "frightening" explosion in opium production in Afghanistan with Helmand province, where Britain has 7,000 troops deployed, leading the way. A record crop means that the country now accounts for 93% of the world's supply and the situation is getting worse daily despite billions being spent to eradicate the trade since 2001. Here the Guardian asks experts in the field what can be done to bring production of the drug to an end. [continues 1397 words]
The deaths of three British soldiers at the end of last week have brought the total number of British soldiers killed in combat in Afghanistan since 2001 to 50. The struggle to rebuild the economy at the same time as protecting the peace is making Afghanistan, for the military, as dangerous as Iraq. It would be facile to suggest that there is an easy route out of the opposition the Nato forces are encountering. But destroying the Afghan poppy crop - now the main livelihood of whole communities - while trying to win the hearts and minds of the people appears to be increasingly incompatible with the real purpose of the mission of permanently defeating the Taliban. Not for the first time, a "war on drugs" has done much harm. [continues 354 words]
$500 Billion Illegal Trade Finances Terror, Crime, Misery Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan's turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. "They were growing right outside the gate of our Forward Operating Base," he told me. Within two weeks of his deployment to the remote town of Sangin, he realized that "poppy is the economic mainstay and everyone is involved right up to the higher echelons of the local government." [continues 1979 words]
Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan's turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. "They were growing right outside the gate of our Forward Operating Base," he told me. Within two weeks of his deployment to the remote town of Sangin, he realized that "poppy is the economic mainstay and everyone is involved right up to the higher echelons of the local government." Poppy, of course, is the plant from which opium - and heroin - are derived. [continues 1852 words]
Failed Drug Fight Is Undermining West's Security Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan's turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. "They were growing right outside the gate of our Forward Operating Base," he told me. Within two weeks of his deployment to the remote town of Sangin, he realized that "poppy is the economic mainstay and everyone is involved right up to the higher echelons of the local government." [continues 1973 words]
We've Spent 36 Years And Billions Of Dollars Fighting It, But The Drug Trade Keeps Growing. Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan's Helmand province in April 2006. "They were growing right outside the gate of our forward operating base," he said. Within two weeks, he realized that "poppy is the economic mainstay, and everyone is involved right up to the higher echelons of the local government." Poppy, of course, is the plant from which opium and heroin are derived. [continues 1359 words]
We've Spent 36 Years and Billions of Dollars Fighting It, but the Drug Trade Keeps Growing Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan's turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. "They were growing right outside the gate of our Forward Operating Base," he told me. Within two weeks of his deployment to the remote town of Sangin, he realized that "poppy is the economic mainstay and everyone is involved right up to the higher echelons of the local government." [continues 1966 words]
The P4M project is a counter-insurgency, counter-narcotics initiative in which licensed farmers cultivate poppy plantations for the production of painkilling medicines, writes Margaret Evans Canada's military personnel are pretty stretched in Afghanistan as they help to reconstruct this war-shredded country. But to win this war against insurgents and win the hearts of the Afghan people maybe Ottawa needs to reconstruct its conventional, entrenched position on the Afghan farmer's opium poppy crop. There are 24 Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan with Canada's team in Kandahar. It is at the forefront of the UN-sanctioned 37-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stabilization and reconstruction mission. [continues 547 words]
The UK government is considering reclassifying cannabis from a class C drug to a class B drug, carrying higher penalties for using and dealing. As an economist with a strong commitment to personal liberty and responsibility, my preference would be to see all illegal drugs legalised. The only exception would be substances whose consumption leads to behaviour likely to cause material harm to others. Following legalisation, the production and sale of these drugs should be regulated to ensure quality and purity. They should also be taxed, as are tobacco products and alcoholic beverages. Greater resources should be devoted to educating the public, especially children and teenagers, about the health hazards associated with the drugs; more money should be spent on the rehabilitation of addicts. [continues 1004 words]
(1) ALLMAN: ZIP-TIES ARE IN Pubdate: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 Source: Willits News (CA) Author: Mike A'Dair, TWN Staff Writer Cited: Sheriff Tom Allman http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/sheriff/ The zip-ties are in. So says Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman. The zip-ties are an effort by Allman to reduce the element of fraud in the medical marijuana industry. Allman said that the zip ties are available at the sheriff's offices in Ukiah, Fort Bragg and Willits. This year the cost will be zero, according to Allman, but next year Allman hopes to sell the ties at $25 apiece. Each tie has a serial number blazoned onto the plastic; next year the ties may be able to contain a microchip. Allman said that each person who wishes to purchase a zip tie must have a valid state medical marijuana card. [continues 8051 words]
For those of you who like brainteasers, here is a conundrum. Last Tuesday in the Lords, the freshly ennobled Lord Malloch Brown, Minister of State at the FCO with responsibility for Africa, Asia and the United Nations, was coming clean about the failure to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan. He said: "It is a terrible black mark on the international community's performance in Afghanistan ... that so far we have not prevailed in the efforts to defeat the growth of this pernicious crop." [continues 478 words]
The NGO's Afghan country director says those who believe the Senlis Council has ulterior motives are toeing the U.S. line on drugs, and invites debate on the group's licensing proposals. Ask officials from some departments working in Afghanistan about the Senlis Council and you will hear grumblings. Some will wonder whether the group has ties to large pharmaceutical companies. Others will wonder whether the group has garnered instant credibility-at least from the mainstream media-because it is one of the Canadian government's loudest critics on Afghanistan. [continues 1245 words]
(1) LEGALIZING POPPIES NOT AN OPTION: EXPERT Pubdate: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU) Copyright: 2007 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc. Author: Mike Blanchfield, CanWest News Service There Would Still Be Much Illegal 'Leakage,' He Says Many have touted it as a simple and compelling solution to Afghanistan's chronic poppy problem: legalize the world-leading opium trade to take it out of the hands of criminals and terrorists. The controversial Senlis Council, the federal Liberal Party, a major Canadian foreign policy think tank, even a former Canadian NATO ambassador have all advocated some form of legal and controlled opium production. Doing so, they argue, would deprive drug dealers of massive profits while easing the pain of the world's sick and putting money into the pockets of poor Afghan farmers. [continues 8007 words]
There Would Still Be Much Illegal 'Leakage,' He Says Many have touted it as a simple and compelling solution to Afghanistan's chronic poppy problem: legalize the world-leading opium trade to take it out of the hands of criminals and terrorists. The controversial Senlis Council, the federal Liberal Party, a major Canadian foreign policy think tank, even a former Canadian NATO ambassador have all advocated some form of legal and controlled opium production. Doing so, they argue, would deprive drug dealers of massive profits while easing the pain of the world's sick and putting money into the pockets of poor Afghan farmers. [continues 475 words]
Illicit Drug Production Would Carry On, He Warns OTTAWA - Many have touted it as a simple and compelling solution to Afghanistan's chronic poppy problem: legalize the world-leading opium trade to take it out of the hands of criminals and terrorists. The controversial Senlis Council, the federal Liberal party, a major Canadian foreign policy think-tank, even a former Canadian NATO ambassador have all advocated some form of legal and controlled opium production. Doing so, they argue, would deprive drug dealers of massive profits while easing the pain of the world's sick and putting money into the pockets of poor Afghan farmers. [continues 310 words]
