pakistani342
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2013
- Messages
- 3,485
- Reaction score
- 6
- Country
- Location
Well, not entirely surprising -- Afghan drugs have claimed for more lives in Pakistan (and the world) than the Taliban.
Yet, when you point this out to Afghans, their response is that well it is Pakistanis that buy the drugs or that some of the chemicals to make drugs come from outside Afghanistan -- I wonder if the same argument could be applied to the Taliban -- that they are predominantly Afghans and that the AK-47 was designed in the USSR. Probably won't have any takers amongst the Afghans.
Article here, excerpts below:
ZHARI, Afghanistan — It’s the cash crop of the Taliban and the scourge of Afghanistan — the country’s intractable opium cultivation. This year, many Afghan poppy farmers are expecting a windfall as they get ready to harvest opium from a new variety of poppy seeds said to boost yield of the resin that produces heroin.
The plants grow bigger, faster, use less water than seeds they’ve used before, and give up to double the amount of opium, they say.
No one seems to know where the seeds originate from. The farmers of Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where most of Afghanistan’s poppies are grown, say they were hand-delivered for planting early this year by the same men who collect the opium after each harvest, and who also provide them with tools, fertilizer, farming advice — and the much needed cash advance.
...
Experts say the Taliban, who have been waging war on the Kabul government for more than a decade, derive around 40 per cent of their funding from opium, which in turn fuels their insurgency.
...
Without government support, it’s impossible to grow food crops as the cash-strapped farmers would have to pay for the seeds, tools, fertilizer and irrigation themselves. No one would come and collect their crop, even if their landlords allowed them to grow wheat or other food.
...
Yet since 2002, the United States has spent at least $7 billion “on a wide variety of programs to reduce poppy cultivation, prevent narcotics production, treat drug addiction and improve the criminal justice system to combat drug trafficking,” John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control in January.
Afghanistan supplies 90 per cent of the world’s opium and opiates originating from there find their way to every corner of the globe, Sopko said.
...
As opium production rises, so does Afghanistan’s own drug addiction problem. Estimates put the number of heroin addicts in the country at between 1.5 million and 2 million in a population estimated at around 30 million. And the unchecked Afghan opium production is also blamed for rising drug addiction in neighbouring countries, including the former Soviet republics to the north, Iran to the west, and China and Pakistan to the east.
Yet, when you point this out to Afghans, their response is that well it is Pakistanis that buy the drugs or that some of the chemicals to make drugs come from outside Afghanistan -- I wonder if the same argument could be applied to the Taliban -- that they are predominantly Afghans and that the AK-47 was designed in the USSR. Probably won't have any takers amongst the Afghans.
Article here, excerpts below:
ZHARI, Afghanistan — It’s the cash crop of the Taliban and the scourge of Afghanistan — the country’s intractable opium cultivation. This year, many Afghan poppy farmers are expecting a windfall as they get ready to harvest opium from a new variety of poppy seeds said to boost yield of the resin that produces heroin.
The plants grow bigger, faster, use less water than seeds they’ve used before, and give up to double the amount of opium, they say.
No one seems to know where the seeds originate from. The farmers of Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where most of Afghanistan’s poppies are grown, say they were hand-delivered for planting early this year by the same men who collect the opium after each harvest, and who also provide them with tools, fertilizer, farming advice — and the much needed cash advance.
...
Experts say the Taliban, who have been waging war on the Kabul government for more than a decade, derive around 40 per cent of their funding from opium, which in turn fuels their insurgency.
...
Without government support, it’s impossible to grow food crops as the cash-strapped farmers would have to pay for the seeds, tools, fertilizer and irrigation themselves. No one would come and collect their crop, even if their landlords allowed them to grow wheat or other food.
...
Yet since 2002, the United States has spent at least $7 billion “on a wide variety of programs to reduce poppy cultivation, prevent narcotics production, treat drug addiction and improve the criminal justice system to combat drug trafficking,” John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control in January.
Afghanistan supplies 90 per cent of the world’s opium and opiates originating from there find their way to every corner of the globe, Sopko said.
...
As opium production rises, so does Afghanistan’s own drug addiction problem. Estimates put the number of heroin addicts in the country at between 1.5 million and 2 million in a population estimated at around 30 million. And the unchecked Afghan opium production is also blamed for rising drug addiction in neighbouring countries, including the former Soviet republics to the north, Iran to the west, and China and Pakistan to the east.
Last edited:
