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Published online 31 October 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/450014d
Europe votes to legalize Afghan opium for medicine
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The press release from the European Parliament, with links to the report and resolution, is at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/030-12347-295-10-43-903-20071024IPR12332-22-10-2007-2007-false/default_en.htm
Good news. Buying up the entire crop would be even better, the cheapest way to undermine support for the Taliban, to say nothing of its effect on the illegal drug trade.
The text adopted by the European Parliament, ‘Production of opium for medical purposes in Afghanistan’, is here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2007-0485+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN
Buying up opium is NOT going to undermine any support for the Taliban. Under Taliban rule, the opium production crashed... as they banned it. It is not an accident that as soon as the country was taken over by coalition forces that opium production skyrocketed. It seems to me that this only encourages Afghan farmers to grow opium as their cash crop. Isn't education and co-op farming a more viable spending of money?
This will keep the poor farmers from fighting against the government. The government is providing alternatives which sucks really bad. The don't have any other alternative except riping on the poor farmers? If they come up with more advanced farming and irrigation, then it will be briliant but right now the security is getting worse because people are angry and hungry at the same time. If the government fucks with people, It will be very hard for the government to win the battle.