CIA CIA CIA

I've never had opium. What is it like?

I don't know about the rest of you White Devils, but I could sure use a relaxing weekend at an Opium Den.

Well, how else do you suggest they make money, subby? Sell rocks? Invest in thier booming tech industry?

J. Frank Parnell: CIA CIA CIA

operation arab spring ain't gonna fund itself

CBS news responds to Afghan opium production....

"U.S. facilitates drug trafficking by allowing poppy growth in Afghanistan."

CBS news responds to U.S. troops destroying poppy fields in Afghanistan...

"U.S. facilitates famine by destroying peasant cash crops in Afghanistan."

This calculation isn't part of the Index of Leading Economic Indicators...why?

potato_chip_eating_geek: If real change had been desired by the administration that launched the offensive, they would have had all the opium fields torched.

It's been done. Didn't help much.

vernonFL: Opium is only 9% of Afghanistan's GDP?

What the fark else do they have over there?

It's a great place to buy sand.

Wasnt it at like 60% at one time?

apachevoyeur: I've never had opium. What is it like?

Tried it once.

Me and the guy I smoked it with would puff a couple of times and then hold out the pipe for the other guy. Ten...fifteen...twenty minutes later the other guy would notice the outstretched arm with a pipe in it and he'd take the pipe, smoke a couple of puffs and then hold out his hand for ten or fifteen minutes.

Very dreamy. Very relaxing. We were in a "campground" (somebody's field that had been flattened) near Rich Stadium (Grateful Dead / CSN Summer Tour '90 W00t!) leaning against his car and it was like we were on the most comfortable sofa ever made.

9% of GDP??? I wouldn't piss on money like that!

potato_chip_eating_geek: If real change had been desired by the administration that launched the offensive, they would have had all the opium fields torched.

Oh no, how would they ever recovered from such devastating losses.

Oh that's right, wait a while and replant. And the fields probably would have produced an extra-bountiful crop thanks to the torching.

Yet another submitter who doesn't know the difference between profits and revenue.

/nitpicking

I think perhapsI put my money on White Powder Ma.


I think so.

I don't get why we haven't tried to legitimize it, since heroin isn't the only opiate, and they're important to the medical industry. It's not like cheaper hydrocodone, acetyldihydrocodeine, oxycodone, oxymorphone, buprenorphine, and papaverine would be a bad thing.

/It's true, I just looked those up and am not a pharmacologist.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said the price rise was due to a plant disease that wiped out much of the opium crop in 2010.

Interesting. Does this blight affect other crops?

GaryPDX: Selling rocks isn't a bad idea, Afghanistan has Emeralds.

The world is rather short on Emerald addicts.

A tinfoil hatter told me the US had to go in and free up the opium supply after the Taliban decimated it because the rich have so much invested in the black market. Not sure how I feel about that theory. I have nothing to back it up, but at the same time, you know there are endless billions of monies involved in the drug trade and the 'war' against them.

It's almost as if someone didn't want the war on drugs to stop.

apachevoyeur: I've never had opium. What is it like?



You feel just capital and everything is perfect until you shoot the sheriff in the street and then Wyatt Earp pistol whips your ass.

chimp_ninja: There's a reason they're stuck in the 14th century.

News story about Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion.

Afghanistan wasn't stuck in the 14th century - they were bombed back to it by the soviet union. If it wasn't for 3 decades of war, Afghanistan would probably have become something like modern day Egypt.

simple:

legalize all the drugs!

problem solved

chimp_ninja: It's mildly challenging to build cars in a country that has no electrical, gas, water, or rail infrastructure to speak of. They are one of the most landlocked countries in the world, and are over 2,000 km from the nearest seaport. 75% of their tiny road network is unpaved. They have two airports anywhere near worth a damn. And building any of the above means construction projects by largely unskilled workers in some of the most hostile (physically and politically) terrain in the world, and you'd better bring all your own tools.

There's a reason they're stuck in the 14th century.

Everyone (and that includes the U.S.) would have been much better off if we did not drive the Soviets out.

I remember hearing once someplace that the US could buy Afghanistan's entire opium crop for less money than is spent in the drug war.

Probably both true and obvious, but still a csb.

So we're outsourcing our drug production as well? Big Pharma must be slacking.

potato_chip_eating_geek: If real change had been desired by the administration that launched the offensive, they would have had all the opium fields torched.


/should have setup some heavy industry there
//car production or something
///taken all the manufacturing of shiat from china and done it in afghanistan
////would have farked the chinese and we'd have a better foodhold in the middle east, made people's lives better locally and reduced the world's opium supply all at once
//// I could be wrong.


I disagree. There is a worldwide shortage of opium for legitimate painkiller production (google it if you want a citation) due to the War On Drugs.

What we should have done is bought up all the opium from the farmers every harvest time at double what the Taliban was paying. We then sell the opium to the pharmaceutical companies at a huge markup. The farmers get paid and their hearts and minds are won. The Taliban can't fund their war efforts by selling drugs. And part of our war effort gets paid for by the pharm companies.

As the war progressed, we could have encouraged the Afghan farmers to switch crops by guaranteeing that we would buy their crops, then sell those to local entrepreneurs. That's how the war could have been won.

germ78: apachevoyeur: I've never had opium.

I would lay odds that that is not true. I have opium in my pocket right now, it's just in the form of codiene/hydrocodone. Root canal's tend to hurt the next day.

Sweet we can use it to pay off the war debt! yay CIA drug wars.

this neurotic obsession with demonizing plants and drugs offends me

vernonFL: Opium is only 9% of Afghanistan's GDP?

What the fark else do they have over there?

They grow some wicked herb over there too, apparently. What a sad story America is.

Legalize it.

The War on Drugs: Making the drug trade more profitable since 1971

/yes I realize it was a blight
//that's redundant anyhow

Best hash ever was Afghani black and came in 6x4x3/4" bricks with an embossed gold foil label in the center.
"Pride of Afghanistan". Like chocolate.
Understood it to be funding the Taliban.circa '87.

Brokenseas: As the war progressed, we could have encouraged the Afghan farmers to switch crops by guaranteeing that we would buy their crops, then sell those to local entrepreneurs. That's how the war could have been won.

Possibly. Have you read "The New Deal"? Initially it focuses on agriculture after WWI in the United States, and the leveraging of prices...

I mean, I would think that you could charge a LOT more for opium than say, cotton. I dunno, though - seems like you have a good idea.

dallylamma: I don't know about the rest of you White Devils, but I could sure use a relaxing weekend at an Opium Den.

bang the gong, get it on