Great article. Starting in the 1950’s, USA funded and provided much technical support to the Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA) which, through irrigation, increased agricultural output in southeastern Afghanistan … until the Soviet invasion when much of this new agricultural
land was turned over to poppy. The best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley!
How I remember the Qanats (pronounced ganats) or Karez of Iran and Afghanistan – and the jubes flowing the clear water in arid places….I was always fascinated by the hidden world under ground where the crystal cool water flowed through the baking hot, arid land of thorny scrub and lizards…
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
Look at Mexico, and how that progresses under the eye of America.
Give me the Taliban with their very ridged moral code of Islam (harsh as it seems to us, but still based on the 10 commandments) Rather than the Central and South American Drug cartels with their Santa Muerte death cult based morality.
Nicholas Taylor
2 years ago
Apart from the clinical use of diamorphine – heroin to you and me – for palliative care of people who are beyond treatment – there’s another word for this that dare not speak its name – it’s ‘recreational’ users whom we can ultimately thank for the misery of Afghanistan. Do they care? I doubt it.
Having lost my three best mates, from school age to heroin, I can tell you that no, they don’t care. All they care about is where the next hit is coming from. These were all middle class lads, and one even went to Sandhurst FFS!
Fentanyl is crashing the value of the heroin, thanks to our great whole sale shopping suppliers, China. What they did to the cost of computers and plastic toys they will do to Opium.
Till this article I had never even thought of Meth being made in Afghanistan – I imagine it would be against Talib ethics….. but then, if the profit is still high enough…. but it is hard to imagine the rest of the lawlessness world cannot keep up with supply demand.
Giles Chance
2 years ago
Sherlock Holmes took opium. I can’t really see the problem with taking opium or heroin. It’s better than alcohol, or nicotine, or certainly no worse. Legalisation of opium would solve many problems without creating too many more. It would marginalise the big drugs cartels because Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Seagrams and BAT would take over. If people want to get high, why not let them? If people want to get drunk, why not let them ?
Excellent column. Tks.
Great article. Starting in the 1950’s, USA funded and provided much technical support to the Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA) which, through irrigation, increased agricultural output in southeastern Afghanistan … until the Soviet invasion when much of this new agricultural
land was turned over to poppy. The best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley!
How I remember the Qanats (pronounced ganats) or Karez of Iran and Afghanistan – and the jubes flowing the clear water in arid places….I was always fascinated by the hidden world under ground where the crystal cool water flowed through the baking hot, arid land of thorny scrub and lizards…
Look at Mexico, and how that progresses under the eye of America.
Give me the Taliban with their very ridged moral code of Islam (harsh as it seems to us, but still based on the 10 commandments) Rather than the Central and South American Drug cartels with their Santa Muerte death cult based morality.
Apart from the clinical use of diamorphine – heroin to you and me – for palliative care of people who are beyond treatment – there’s another word for this that dare not speak its name – it’s ‘recreational’ users whom we can ultimately thank for the misery of Afghanistan. Do they care? I doubt it.
Having lost my three best mates, from school age to heroin, I can tell you that no, they don’t care. All they care about is where the next hit is coming from. These were all middle class lads, and one even went to Sandhurst FFS!
Fentanyl is crashing the value of the heroin, thanks to our great whole sale shopping suppliers, China. What they did to the cost of computers and plastic toys they will do to Opium.
Till this article I had never even thought of Meth being made in Afghanistan – I imagine it would be against Talib ethics….. but then, if the profit is still high enough…. but it is hard to imagine the rest of the lawlessness world cannot keep up with supply demand.
Sherlock Holmes took opium. I can’t really see the problem with taking opium or heroin. It’s better than alcohol, or nicotine, or certainly no worse. Legalisation of opium would solve many problems without creating too many more. It would marginalise the big drugs cartels because Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Seagrams and BAT would take over. If people want to get high, why not let them? If people want to get drunk, why not let them ?
Sherlock Holmes wasn’t real.
The thousands of people overdosing on drugs across the US are.
He took cocaine, I think. Arthur Conan Doyle seems to have despised opium addicts, judging by the stories where it is mentioned.
Opium causes intractable constipation.