Article useless without scratch and sniff

Aren't the drugs in Afghanistan mostly opium based?

Were any vanities burned?

Ummm... yeah... we burned it...

good riddance. raisens are nasty.

Or, y'know, we could have converted all of the small-time Afghani farmers into growing cotton instead of opium poppies. More profitable for farmers, help them build their community, and directly strike at the heart of Taliban funding.

But no, our own goddamn government is too goddamn stupid to see a solution to multiple problems handed to them on a silver platter.

Read this article to get good and pissed off on a Monday morning about how stupid USAID has been about this issue (pops).

Pass it on. You should be pissed off about this. Our guys, and theirs, are getting killed because of incompetent bureaucrats building their picayune empires.

It should raise the price of the stuff we are growing over there. We should get Geraldo Rivera to report on it.

werekoala: Or, y'know, we could have converted all of the small-time Afghani farmers into growing cotton instead of opium poppies. More profitable for farmers, help them build their community, and directly strike at the heart of Taliban funding.

But no, our own goddamn government is too goddamn stupid to see a solution to multiple problems handed to them on a silver platter.

Read this article to get good and pissed off on a Monday morning about how stupid USAID has been about this issue (pops).

Pass it on. You should be pissed off about this. Our guys, and theirs, are getting killed because of incompetent bureaucrats building their picayune empires.

Opium has a higher profit margin, compared to cotton, and we just upped the price a little more.

Artificial scarcity.

You're not allowed to have raisins in Afghanistan?

RedVentrue:
Opium has a higher profit margin, compared to cotton, and we just upped the price a little more.

Artificial scarcity.

Actually, on the production side, cotton can make just as much money for the farmers as opium. It only gets really profitable after processing & refinement. And the farmers see almost none of that.

Which is why they are still in crushing poverty.

werekoala: RedVentrue:
Opium has a higher profit margin, compared to cotton, and we just upped the price a little more.

Artificial scarcity.

Actually, on the production side, cotton can make just as much money for the farmers as opium. It only gets really profitable after processing & refinement. And the farmers see almost none of that.

Which is why they are still in crushing poverty.

Here is a better idea. Buy the drugs directly from the farmer. Cut the taliban out of the picture, no need to bust them etc. Just set up an easy and effective way for the farmers to sell their products directly to the us govt. it could either be further refined by by pharma or simply destroyed.

I would be willing to bet it would be cheaper and more effective.

Stephen McFarland, coordinating director for rule of law and law enforcement at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, and other foreign officials attended the burn in support of the Afghan government's drug interdiction workto party like it's 1999.

Fixed for clarity.

I know it sounds disgusting, but why not sell it and use the money for betterment of society. Let the junkies and idiots stay high while the rest of us iive better lives?

NeoBad: Let the junkies and idiots stay high while the rest of us iive better lives?

To some degree, people are like toddlers their whole lives. We keep them away from "traps" that are addictive, invisibly dangerous or harmful in the long-term.

Summoner101: Aren't the drugs in Afghanistan mostly opium based?

Pretty much.

While cannabis literally grows like grass over there, we only saw one cultivated cannabis field among all the poppy plants.

NeoBad: I know it sounds disgusting, but why not sell it and use the money for betterment of society. Let the junkies and idiots stay high while the rest of us iive better lives?

That works as long as the junkies and idiots are in some other country far away. The British did it in the 18th and 19th century, growing opium in India which they shipped to market in China. It built an empire for the British, and essentially cost the Chinese more than a century of economic progress.

So the big question is, if we want to raise up the Afghans through the opium trade, who gets to be the Chinese? The Chinese probably aren't going to be game for round two. Maybe we could force it on the Greeks or the rest of Eastern Europe; they seem content enough to sit through this economic malaise in a drug induced stupor. Or maybe we could do it. I mean, America has the resources to deal with a generation of opium addicts, and we certainly don't need the additional productivity those people might bring in the absence of a cheap and super effective high.

Cheron: Article useless without scratch and sniff

They said it was mainly heroin and it smells exactly like vinegar.

give them some time. im sure theyll find something to blow up or some school girls to shoot

kindms: RedVentrue:
Here is a better idea. Buy the drugs directly from the farmer. Cut the taliban out of the picture, no need to bust them etc. Just set up an easy and effective way for the farmers to sell their products directly to the us govt. it could either be further refined by by pharma or simply destroyed.

I would be willing to bet it would be cheaper and more effective.

The point is, there is equal, if not greater demand for cotton, and it pays just as well to the local farmers, and there is no danger of it being diverted. Several hundred pounds of processed opium is basically a motive with a universal adapter. So why keep it around when there is something equally effective without any of the drawbacks?

All the farmers need to switch over is the seeds, and some large-scale infrastructure that would pay for itself in less than a decade. From an asymmetrical warfare perspective alone, depriving your enemies of the funding with which to finance their side of the conflict is a key victory, worth more than killing hundreds of Taliban fighters.

But the Marines can't finance it, otherwise they would. And USAID has their heads firmly entrenched up their asses.

If you want a reason to be pissed off about our failure to learn lessons from history, Little America (pops to Amazon) is probably one of your best resources for criticizing anyone and everyone in the higher levels of US government, Democrat & Republican alike. Which is probably why no one's talking about it--doesn't make convenient grist for the talking-head mill.

I am disappointed in the video due to the camera angle switch at the very best part of igniting a gasoline soaked fire, the part where the fire reaches the main pile and pretty much explodes. Also I wanted to know having not been much of a drug user if one would still be able to get high from the smoke of that fire or does the gas change the nature of the smoke?

Profedius, burned heroin isn't much good because the psychoactive chemicals are kind of sensitive to light and heat. It is many many times more effective if vaporized rather than simply burned. That being said, plenty is probably being vaporized too, but the majority of it is simply being burned.

Profedius: I am disappointed in the video due to the camera angle switch at the very best part of igniting a gasoline soaked fire, the part where the fire reaches the main pile and pretty much explodes. Also I wanted to know having not been much of a drug user if one would still be able to get high from the smoke of that fire or does the gas change the nature of the smoke?

The gas probably burned off pretty quickly.

Orders of pizza through the roof?

Thanks guys for the replies hash was the strongest thing I ever tried, it and marijuana really didn't do anything for me aside from a tingling feeling all over. The feeling was not worth breaking the law, but if someone has some at an event or something I would smoke it. I watched my friend do crack and all he did was shake and stay awake for 3 days, my life is not entertaining enough to stay up 24 hours let alone 72.

I hope they give Baz a raise. Seriously.