Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastBoyScout
The tribal leaders still profit off the poppies today, but the drugs (as they always have) make their way into the world largely via Pakistan where the Taliban are now operating.
The Taliban still make money by enforcing "laws" in the lawless region of Pakistan. The drugs get trafficked right through the area that the Taliban control. The Traffickers work in concert with and fund the Taliban to a large extent.
Legalization would dramatically cut the amount of poppy that gets smuggled out through Pakistan. That can only be a good thing.
|
Viability depends on market value of legal exports (I have no idea), will they generate as much revenue as illegal production. Resistance to US occupation will tax those proceeds in one form or another and, if illegal exports are more profitable, tribal chieftains will play both the legal and illegal sides of the street.
Here's a US state department paper opposing legalization:
U.S. Opposes Efforts to Legalize Opium in Afghanistan: The Rationale Against Legalization
One of their talking points is legal poppy exportation having far less value than illegal exports. The paper claims legal morphine is in adequate supply and stockpiled, but contradicts itself by blaming unavailability in undeveloped countries on this and that. Typical anti-drug message tied in with expressed democratic principles from an administration in bed with the pharmaceutical industry.