# The Poppy Eradication Superthread-Merged



## Lockness (23 Sep 2006)

Not that the NATO forces are directly involved in stopping poppy production.  Here is some background information on the cultivation of poppies since so much of the operations are occurring in poppy fields.

Just speculating here...thinking that its harvest time right now in Sept/Oct with a lot of incentives for drug lords to protect their fields until harvest is complete.

http://www.poppies.ws/poppies/opium-poppy-cultivation.html?act_vn

...
Opium poppies take about three months to mature, and the farmer may weed the fields once or twice during that time. When the plants are mature, the farmers start harvesting opium gum using primitive, unsanitary tools, made from whatever can be found nearby. The tools are often handed down from generation to generation.

Just before reaching maturity, the opium poppy plant produces a flower. After about a week, the flower petals fall off, leaving a capsule. Raw opium gum is harvested from this capsule. The surface of the capsule is cut, or "scored," with a knife containing three or four small blades, and the opium gum oozes out through these cuts in the opium poppy. The next day, the farmer scrapes the gum off the capsules with a flat tool called a scraper. Each capsule is usually scored in this manner three to five times, or until scoring produces no more gum. opium poppy fields contain thousands of opium poppy capsules, so harvesting is very labor intensive. Once the gum is collected, the farmer sets it out to dry for several days, then wraps it in banana leaf or plastic. The gum is stored until a trader comes to the village-opium gum has a very long shelf life and can gain value over time. After the harvesting process is complete, the capsules are cut from the stem, allowed to dry, then broken open so that the seeds inside the capsule can be used for next year's crop.

Refining raw opium poppy into heroin is a tedious, multistep process. Once the opium gum is transported to a refinery, it is converted into morphine, an intermediate product. This conversion is achieved primarily by chemical processes and requires several basic elements and implements. Boiling water is used to dissolve opium gum; 55-gallon drums are used for boiling vessels; and burlap sacks are used to filter and strain liquids. When dried, the morphine resulting from this initial process is pressed into bricks. The conversion of morphine bricks into heroin is also primarily a chemical process. The main chemical used is acetic anhydride, along with sodium carbonate, activated charcoal, chloroform, ethyl alcohol, ether, and acetone. The two most commonly produced heroin varieties are No. 3 heroin, or smoking heroin, and No. 4 heroin, or injectable heroin. 
...

Anyone add to info from your experience in Afghanistan?


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## Trinity (23 Sep 2006)

Lockness said:
			
		

> Anyone add to info from your experience in Afghanistan?



Probably not.  Last time I checked we weren't over there making opium.  ;D ;D


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## Lockness (23 Sep 2006)

LMAO

How bout doing a recce through a poppy field and getting all gummed up. =)


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## HItorMiss (23 Sep 2006)

I can talk alot about my experience's in Afghanistan, but I'm not really sure what it is your asking  ???


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## silentbutdeadly (23 Sep 2006)

I have some pics of us in the Helmand province with regard to poppies. If i can remember how to post them !


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## Lockness (23 Sep 2006)

HitorMiss said:
			
		

> I can talk alot info about my experience's in Afghanistan, but I'm not really sure what it is your asking  ???



Well I was thinking there might be some anecdotal stories about conducting operations in and around poppy fields, tripped out farmers, or taliban etc.  When Bush says that "he wants to smoke Al Qaeda out of their holes," it kinda presents a new meaning when you guys on the front lines are presented a favourable wind direction, acres of marijuana fields, and Taliban hiding in them.  Potheads are not exactly known for their motivation or will to fight unless it involves searching for food.  

Sorry, I don't mean to make light of what you guys experienced, its just that there is an *information void* when it comes to what its actually like on the ground.  I'm sure when you get back home and are talking to your non-army friends, they ask you: "So what was it like?"  I can imagine its like "Hrmm, where do I begin?" followed by a flood of images and silence.  When Infidel-6 names Afghanistan as Asscrackistan, it surprisingly invokes a lot of imaginery of the sights and smells of what the place could be like.  In the email of the PPLCI FOO "Panjawai and Beyond,"  we (i.e. JQ public) get some real insight of what it is like to be in the thick of it for 3 weeks. Details such as having to wear your same clothes for days/weeks, covered in dried sweat and being so exhausted you can fall asleep in the dirt with "sand fleas" biting.  The Canadian environment is just so completely opposite of Afghanistan but so much the same if you replace dried sweat with frozen sweat, dirt and sand with mud and snow, sand fleas with mosquitoes.  Is it any wonder that Canadian soldiers can maintain a high morale and thrive when operating in places like this. For me I can't stand the heat, 60C daytime temperatures is just unfathomable, hell anything above 25C is too damn hot.  Give me minus 20C weather and I'm loving it.

I guess what I am asking for is more stories.  The army is described as hurry up and wait with most of your time in preparation and waiting.  The media is pretty good about reporting about front line action, body counts, military stats etc but are not really interested in publishing day to day stuff.  Blogs have to some degree filled this void, but quite typically we only get to see the life inside the base near a computer and internet hookup.  

I would think this information could be really practical for the people who have yet to go over there either as part of the military, NGO's or civilians in the PRT's.  This past summer, I did get to watch from afar, for a few hours, some canadian military training exercises outside Kamloops.  I'm guessing that having the troops running around all day in their battle dress in dusty 40C heat was for prepping to go to Afghanistan.  It wasn't until I saw the military helicopters flying around my home town that, I really became curious of what was happening with the Afghanistan mission.  Now I'm hooked now that I found Army.ca!

The reason I asked about poppies to begin with was I was guessing the stories might be humorous, wouldn't cause operational security issues, or cause stress from invoking images of front line action.  The way I see it, poppies are really a litmus test on the health of Afghanistan and provide a real quantitative measure of how Afghanistan is progressing.  The above linked article suggested that farmers see very little profit from the actual poppy production so therefore should be willing to grow new crops of higher value or yield.  The reason why the farmers grow poppies is they intimately already know how, have the fields and seeds, can sell nearly all of their product, the product can be reduced to small high concentrated and high valued bricks to make transportation to market so much simplier than other bulky products, and has a long storage life so no worries about spoilage.  

So burning fields and aerial spraying of herbicides that US is reported to be conducting is a complete waste of time and money and its only creating security issues from pissed off farmers who can't feed their families now that their crop was destroyed and take it out on the nearest foreign soldier.  Thank god NATO recognizes this and is staying out of the drug interventions and is rather concentrating on security so that NGO's have a chance to retrain farmers to grow other high valued crops like saffron and cumin as one article states.  This will only work if the road system is in place so that bulk goods can be transported from the hinterlands to the cities, a market system is in place so that the goods can be sold in a timely manner, and a financial system is in place so that farmers can finance the restart of next years crop.  (How can you tell I have a business degree.)  Of course this whole system falls apart with NGO's are being killed in the fields.  So it all comes down to security as the most important first step and that's where we are today.

Then we have critics like the NDP who just do not seem to get it.  You know there is some intelligent people on the left, I'm guessing they are critical because well thats the party line they've been fed, or just have not educated themselves with whats going on the ground before they start spouting off.  One day the light will turn on, and then we have to listen to the spin of what they really wanted done. <puke>

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
- Winston Churchill

Lockness


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## boondocksaint (23 Sep 2006)

the video of us in Hyderabad has all the opium edited out at the moment, but we busted about 15 million in black tar, it was eating through the bags and burning our hands and.....wait where am i.. well it does burn, and all we had to move it in was plastic bags that kept ripping, 

i'll post some pics later of what it looked like, as well as the captured weapons from the drug fighters we got during the fight, those guys fought pretty damn hard to hold on to their dope, but no joy 8)


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## The Bread Guy (28 Dec 2006)

Those nice "just regulate the stuff" Senlis folks seem to be making inroads.....  

Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

*Morphine-free poppy suggested to counter Afghan heroin boom*
Philip Dine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 28 Dec 06
Article Link

After a year of escalating Afghan heroin production, calls are mounting for a shift in U.S. policy aimed at turning Afghanistan's poppy into an economic asset by using it to produce medicinal painkillers.

Backers of the proposal include leading scientists and economists, as well as some in Congress. The Bush administration is skeptical.

Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., plans to use his recently acquired seat on the House International Relations Committee to bring the matter up when lawmakers convene next month.

"You can't just cut off the poppies because that's the livelihood of the people who live there," Carnahan said Thursday. "But providing them with alternative legal markets for pain-relief medication is a way to help cut back on that heroin supply."

Carnahan hopes to drive these points home by using testimony from law-enforcement officers, drug abuse experts and scientists from St. Louis, where officials say an influx of Afghan heroin is causing problems.

"We need to have a better way of dealing with the problem, since it's proving to be so deadly here in St. Louis and in the Midwest," he said.

In backing the idea, Carnahan and others cite its success elsewhere.

Thirty years ago, U.S. officials fashioned a treaty that turned a looming narcotics threat in Turkey and India into a part of their legitimate economies using poppies to make legal medication. Those nations export raw opiates from which painkillers are produced by companies such as Mallinkcrodt of St. Louis.

Australia has a thriving trade from altered, morphine-free poppies that cannot be easily used to produce heroin. The painkillers derived from a compound it produces, called thebaine, are potent and in demand throughout much of the world.

Congressional frustration has grown as Afghanistan's illicit poppy cultivation, which has exploded since the U.S. invasion, has jumped 60 percent over the past year. It now produces 90 percent of the world's heroin, while helping fund the Taliban insurgency.

But the administration sees problems with a proposal to produce legal poppies.

Tom Schweich, a senior State Department official who is spearheading U.S. efforts to curb Afghan narcotics, said he welcomed "creative ideas" but found this one to be "not realistic."

He said Afghan farmers wouldn't have enough economic incentive to turn away from illegal poppy cultivation. He added that Afghanistan lacks the required business infrastructure for processing, manufacturing and distribution; and that the oversight needed to prevent illicit drug trafficking would be near impossible.

"You really need to keep it illegal and eradicate it," Schweich said.

Beyond administration concerns, there also would be agricultural challenges in implementing such a program, and likely opposition from nations now reaping profits from the legal poppy trade.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in May that police and health officials in Missouri and Illinois were noting increased arrests, seizures of contraband and drug overdoses related to Afghan heroin. This week, law enforcement officials in Orange County, Calif., said a sharp rise in Afghan heroin is the top drug problem they face.

Carnahan's involvement stems in part from a meeting his staff recently had with Percy Menzies, who runs an addiction recovery center in St. Louis, and Dan Duncan, head of the St. Louis chapter of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse.

"The amount of middle-class people using heroin in the St. Louis area the last couple of years just horrifies me," Duncan said. "It's long past time we take a good hard look at some new strategies."

Menzies, president of Assisted Recovery Centers in St. Louis, spent 18 years at Dupont Pharmaceuticals, where he worked with poppy-derived substances to treat heroin addiction and helped establish treatment centers in five states.

"For the first time, we have more people addicted to heroin than alcohol in my clinic, and these are suburban kids from St. Louis County. More and more Afghan heroin is coming in," Menzies says.

Vanda Faber-Brown is an expert in the role of narcotics in illicit economics and military conflicts. Faber-Brown, who works at Harvard University and the Brookings Institution, says convincing Afghan farmers to change their brand of poppy would be easier than trying to wipe out poppy fields altogether, destroying their livelihood.

"Essentially, opium has replaced money in key day-to-day activities in the countryside," Faber-Brown says. Poppy's domination of Afghanistan's economy, between 30 and 50 percent of economic activity, dwarfs anything previously seen in Colombia, Bolivia or Burma, she says.

Toni Kutchan is a biochemist who leads an internationally renowned research team on medicinal plants, including poppy, at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis. She spent two decades in Germany, where she also headed research teams in plant biochemistry.

"The idea of creating a trade for morphine-free opium is very worthwhile and needs to be thought through carefully," she said. "It should not be pushed off the table by a knee-jerk reaction against it."

The Australian poppy plants are an easily achieved mutant, but there could be a legal issue of patents, Kutchan said. If that posed problems because the Australians did not want to share it, the same plants could be created by genetic modification, albeit with more difficulty, she says.

A related option is to bring Afghanistan into a 1970s treaty reached with U.S. prompting that allowed Turkey and India to keep growing poppies as long as the morphine produced was sold to companies that make legal painkillers. Experts say that while this wouldn't require changing the type of poppies in Afghanistan, the strict regulation needed so the morphine isn't turned into heroin could be a problem, given Afghanistan's ineffective government.

The search for a new approach is largely prompted by the failure of current U.S. policies to stem Afghan poppy production.

James Dobbins, who was President Bush's first special envoy to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said proposals for a morphine-free poppy should be closely examined.

"I'd certainly like to see a study on how feasible that is," said Dobbins, who now directs the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corp. "I do think that the current U.S. and international effort is at best a kind of a band aid that can't have more than a marginal impact."

Dr. Charles Schuster headed the National Institute on Drug Abuse under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and is now director of the Neuro-Sciences Institute at Loyola University in Chicago.

"I think the government should give serious consideration to attempting to implement that type of program," he said, adding that current U.S. policies alone "are never going to be the solution for this."


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## zipperhead_cop (28 Dec 2006)

Looks like a great idea, but if big pharmaceutical can't get a big piece of it, wait and see the idea get shot to hell.  
And not being a biologist/pharmacist, wouldn't you want the morphine in tact to create legitimate pain killers?


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## Klc (29 Dec 2006)

I wondered that too, but the article seems to imply that another compound in the mutant poppies is used, and allegedly harder to use illicitly.


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## The Bread Guy (29 Dec 2006)

I read the piece the same way re:  pain meds would still be possible with the "nicer" poppy.

Seems some Brits are climbing aboard the bandwagon as well, only with a slightly different spin....

*Let's buy up all the heroin, says MP*
Selous says direct action in Afghanistan would help ease UK problems
Bedford Today (UK), 29 Dec 06
Article Link

The UK government should buy up the heroin crop in Afghanistan and use it around the world for pain relief, according to South West Beds MP Andrew Selous.  Speaking in the House of Commons he said to fellow MPs: "Why, given that heroin can have legitimate medical uses, cannot we buy up the Afghan heroin crop and use it around the world for pain relief? That would stop it flooding into this country illegally. We need much serious thought on that issue."  He said that the recent events in Ipswich - where five prostitutes were murdered - highlighted the problem.  Mr Selous stated: "I read the biographies of the women who were so brutally and horrifically murdered and I cannot have been the only one to be struck by the fact that they were all heroin addicts. It is a problem that affects all our constituencies - there will not be a single Member of Parliament who does not have a heroin problem in their constituency.  Given that we know that 90 per cent of the heroin on UK streets comes from Afghanistan and that we have a major military presence there, it is extraordinary that we cannot do more to stop the poppy crop ending up here." ....


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## bilton090 (29 Dec 2006)

+1, We should buy up the crop, all of it !, then the druglords have not a thing to use, supply dries up, one more problem gone !


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## armyvern (29 Dec 2006)

Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

Morphine-free poppy suggested to counter Afghan heroin boom
Philip Dine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 28 Dec 06
http://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=543&ArticleID=1945881



> ...buy up the heroin crop in Afghanistan and use it around the world for pain relief...



Hmmm, I seem to recall that this very suggestion was brought up on Army.ca a few months ago...


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## bilton090 (29 Dec 2006)

The Librarian said:
			
		

> Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.
> 
> Morphine-free poppy suggested to counter Afghan heroin boom
> Philip Dine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 28 Dec 06
> ...


                  +1, We are beating a dead horse !


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## Bruce Monkhouse (29 Dec 2006)

However, if there is still no security all we have done is cut out the hardest part of the operation [conversion and shipment] and made the money much easier for the bad guys to get......


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## armyvern (29 Dec 2006)

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> However, if there is still no security all we have done is cut out the hardest part of the operation [conversion and shipment] and made the money much easier for the bad guys to get......



I think Army.ca posters solved that problem too (at least in the previous thread!!).  ;D


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## Genetk44 (29 Dec 2006)

bilton090 said:
			
		

> +1, We should buy up the crop, all of it !, then the druglords have not a thing to use, supply dries up, one more problem gone !



I remember about 10-15 years ago, the late Peter Jennings of ABC news, offered the same idea about the cocaine crop in South America. He pointed out that the cost of buying up all the coca production directly from the farmers would be far less than the amount of money the US was spending on funding the DEA, it would cut off the supply for the bad boys and yet it would keep the farmers not only happy but friendly to the authorities. It makes perfect sense....except there are too many vested interests in keeping the status quo.


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## The Bread Guy (29 Dec 2006)

Genetk44 said:
			
		

> I remember about 10-15 years ago, the late Peter Jennings of ABC news, offered the same idea about the cocaine crop in South America. He pointed out that the cost of buying up all the coca production directly from the farmers would be far less than the amount of money the US was spending on funding the DEA, it would cut off the supply for the bad boys and yet it would keep the farmers not only happy but friendly to the authorities. It makes perfect sense....except there are too many vested interests in keeping the status quo.



...not to mention "infrastructure costs" to get all that money spent


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## DBA (29 Dec 2006)

Production would increase rather dramatically and any attempt to curb how much you buy would mean the illicit buyers would be back in business. It's just not that simple.


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## Kirkhill (30 Dec 2006)

I'm with those that think this is a good idea.  At the same time though there will always be a need for Excisemen and Revenooers.


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## Kunu (30 Dec 2006)

DBA said:
			
		

> Production would increase rather dramatically and any attempt to curb how much you buy would mean the illicit buyers would be back in business. It's just not that simple.



As much as I like this idea, I also think the above mentioned point cannot be ignored.  While some farmers will be content with selling their crop legimately to feed their families, I have trouble believing that there won't be at least a few who get greedy and sell for illicit purposes for more bling.  I think it's just human nature.  Also, the supply-demand argument can go both ways, if people want it badly enough, they'll pay more if less is out there.  

Also, another side of me can't help but think of the old legend of the city which had a rat problem and whose mayor put a bounty on each dead rat turned in.  However, instead of eliminating the rat population, some crafty people started breeding them.  If such a thing happened with poppies, while it may keep people out of trouble, it still doesn't help develop a "real economy".


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## zipperhead_cop (30 Dec 2006)

Perhaps don't give the farmers money?  Give them items for their trade, such as food, seeds, a new tractor, an irrigation system etc.  Provide items that will ultimately make them better farmers, but don't just throw cash around that can fall into the wrong hands.  Maybe if there is land available, give them some of that too, so they can expand their operation.  Bigger crops of legal harvest to offset the high value poppy crops.


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## bilton090 (30 Dec 2006)

zipperhead_cop said:
			
		

> Perhaps don't give the farmers money?  Give them items for their trade, such as food, seeds, a new tractor, an irrigation system etc.  Provide items that will ultimately make them better farmers, but don't just throw cash around that can fall into the wrong hands.  Maybe if there is land available, give them some of that too, so they can expand their operation.  Bigger crops of legal harvest to offset the high value poppy crops.


   + 1 Zipperhead


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## Kunu (20 Jan 2007)

Don't mean to kick the thread, but there's also gotta be mechanisms to ensure that bigger crops of legal harvest don't become bigger crops of poppy.


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## zipperhead_cop (20 Jan 2007)

Kilo Mike said:
			
		

> Don't mean to kick the thread, but there's also gotta be mechanisms to ensure that bigger crops of legal harvest don't become bigger crops of poppy.



No doubt there would be lots of issues with implementing such a program.  But if regulation and enforcement of crop standards ends up being the big issue there, I think we will have gotten to a point where we have things pretty gripped.


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## GAP (25 Jan 2007)

Afghanistan won't spray poppies
JASON STRAZIUSO Associated Press
Article Link

KABUL — Afghanistan's heroin-producing poppies will not be sprayed with herbicide this year despite a record crop in 2006 and U.S. pressure for President Hamid Karzai to allow the drug-fighting tactic, a spokesman said Thursday.

However, Mr. Karzai told foreign and Afghan officials this week that if Afghanistan's poppy crop isn't reduced this year he would allow spraying in 2008, according to a Western official who requested anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

Mr. Karzai's cabinet decided Sunday to hold off on using chemicals for now, according to Said Mohammad Azam, spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Counter Narcotics.

“There will be no ground spraying this year,” Mr. Azam told The Associated Press.

He said there would be more pressure to destroy poppy crops with “traditional” techniques — typically sending teams of labourers into fields to batter down or plow in the plants before they can be harvested.

“If it works, that is fine,” Mr. Azam said. “If it does not, next year ground spraying will be in the list of options.”

Fuelled by the Taliban, a powerful drug mafia and the need for a profitable crop that can overcome drought, opium production from poppies in Afghanistan last year rose 49 per cent to 6,700 tons — enough to make about 670 tons of heroin. That's more than 90 per cent of the world's supply and more than the world's addicts consume in a year.
More on link


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## Armymedic (13 May 2007)

Guess we can say that we don't do drugs...

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070512/afghanistan_poppies_070512/20070512?hub=TopStories

CTV.ca News Staff 
  


> Updated: Sat. May. 12 2007 10:13 PM ET
> 
> Afghanistan is on the verge of harvesting its latest record opium crop, and Canadian troops are staying out of the way.
> 
> ...


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## McG (13 May 2007)

I'm surprised to see that the UN is advocating erredication.  Erradication is only a band-aid solution & it would win us new enemies.  We'd be better off developing alternatives for the farmers or finding a legal market for the current drug crops.

However, it is up to the Afghan government to decide how they want to tackle this.


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## rmacqueen (13 May 2007)

It will be difficult for the Afghan government to resist the pressure of the US who seem stuck on the myopic view of eradication.  There is an opportunity here to convert Afghan farmers to the legitimate cultivation of poppies but narrow minded interests keep getting in the way.  While US pharmaceutical companies cry out for more opium for the production legal drugs, and Australia and France make huge profits from poppy crops, the hypocritical views of many in charge threaten to keep Afghanistan poor and a prime target for terrorist recruitment.  More common sense and less self-righteousness is what is needed


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## The Bread Guy (8 Oct 2007)

Well, here's some tidbits that show me why eradicating the poppy crop willy-nilly BEFORE providing alternative opportunities is gonna be kind of difficult, from the latest USAID Food Security Update for AFG:


> (....)  "In areas of southern Afghanistan where the May and June poppy harvest was good, farmers were able to receive sufficient income from the sale of the crop, and their household food security is good. However, food security is deteriorating for those households that rely on labor migration to Iran and Pakistan for their income and livelihood. Iran continues to deport Afghan laborers, although at a slower pace than was initially expected, and the worsening political situation in Pakistan is negatively affecting job opportunities for Afghans in Pakistan."  (....)




Also gives some perspective on the impact of refugees being pushed out of neighbouring countries:


> (....)  "The main food security problem in Afghanistan is a lack of economic access to food rather than food availability ....  (so) the increase in food prices will have a significant negative impact on the purchasing power of most Afghan households.  This decrease in purchasing power will be exacerbated by the scarcity of employment opportunities in Afghanistan, particularly in rural areas. The ongoing deportation of Afghan laborers from Iran is further increasing competition for the already limited income-earning opportunities."  (....)



A bit more here...

_- edited to add blog entry - _


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## GAP (5 Nov 2007)

Poppy Irony 
Article Link

November 11 is almost upon us and the lapels of Canadians are a virtual bumper crop of poppies. Since the 1920’s Canadians (and citizens of various Commonwealth nations) have been wearing the poppy to symbolize remembrance of the soldiers lost in the 1st world war. Since then, there have been several more wars (conflicts, police actions, etc) and we now wear the poppy to remember all of the brave Canadian soldiers who have paid the ultimate price.

I was thinking about the current situation in Afghanistan and of the job we have sent our troops to do, to help make the country safe, (no debates here about the worth of the mission or whether and when it should end, just the reason we went in the first place.) And then the irony struck me.

Imagine a brand new Afghan immigrant to Canada living through their first Remembrance Day. What do they see Canadians wearing to support their troops? Poppies! Which to them would be symbols, not of remembrance, but of drugs, death, corruption and the Taliban!

It just goes to show that the very same thing, a simple flower in this case, can represent wildly different things to different people.

I wonder if the Canadian troops (or at least the officers) are wearing their poppies this week, and what kind of looks they must be getting from the Afghans they are there to protect.
More on link


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## WLSC (5 Nov 2007)

Some people realy create problem were their's none.  I'm not a big ''connaisseur'' in flowers, but a dont thing they even look the same : :


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## George Wallace (5 Nov 2007)

I am also not a connaisseur of flora and fawna, but I am positive that the Red Poppies of Flanders are not at all the same as the Opium Poppies of Asia.


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## vonGarvin (5 Nov 2007)

How would Afghans react if told that we wear poppies as a sign of remembrance?  They would probably ask why, just as any other person would ask why someone does something that may seem odd.  Once explained, I'm certain that Aghans would smile, nod their heads and say "Ah, that explains it.  Thank you."  After all, Afghans are people, just like you, me and everyone else you meet.


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## WLSC (5 Nov 2007)

Thanks George !

Maybe someone shoud send him a photo and tell him that yes, we will were them !


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## medaid (5 Nov 2007)

Indeed! This guy's making little apples into big oranges. Pffft, I wear mine proudly every year. We should direct him to Cbt Camera where they sho troops with poppies on every year.


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## George Wallace (5 Nov 2007)

If some of these people would do some basic research, such as using Google "Flower, Poppy, Opium" they may come to this site that shows that there are a wide variety of poppies and appearances.

http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/page10pop.htm


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## JBoyd (5 Nov 2007)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> I am also not a connaisseur of flora and fawna, but I am positive that the Red Poppies of Flanders are not at all the same as the Opium Poppies of Asia.



Correct

I have attached a Flanders Field Poppy, Along with a Opium Poppy (which comes in other colors, not just red)

However Opium poppies are not just grown in Asia, they are grown world wide.

Also, they are grown and used for a variety of purposes, from food, to medicine (morphine, thebaine, codeine, papaverine, and noscapine are all extracted from the opium poppy). Keep in mind that Opium also has been used to treat Asthma, stomach illness's and bad eye sight. The opium poppy was also used by the ancient greeks.

So to Green Dude, to judge a flower and its symbolances due to the fact that it can also be used as a narcotic is pure ignorance.


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## WLSC (5 Nov 2007)

Or maybe, he was talking about 4 legs puppy... ;D   I'm just asking !


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## ixium (5 Nov 2007)

Just like the swastika, misused by the Nazis, but dates back thousands and thousands of years before they were even thought up.


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## JBoyd (5 Nov 2007)

ixium said:
			
		

> Just like the swastika, misused by the Nazis, but dates back thousands and thousands of years before they were even thought up.


not to take it off topic, but totally true, Ancient native tribes used the swastika as an everyday symbol


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## GAP (5 Nov 2007)

JBoyd said:
			
		

> not to take it off topic, but totally true, Ancient native tribes used the swastika as an everyday symbol



Was it not pointed out recently that the US Navy had built housing that looked like a swastika from overhead? ooops  ;D


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## kincanucks (5 Nov 2007)

_So to the original poster, to judge a flower and its symbolances due to the fact that it can also be used as a narcotic is pure ignorance. _ 

You are calling Gap ignorant because he posted an article stating this?


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## GAP (5 Nov 2007)

Moi?   ;D


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## vonGarvin (5 Nov 2007)

GAP said:
			
		

> Was it not pointed out recently that the US Navy had built housing that looked like a swastika from overhead? ooops  ;D


Let us not forget the insignia of the US 45th Infantry:


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## JBoyd (5 Nov 2007)

no not Gap, i should have rephrased that, i was meaning to whomever wrote the article, I will edit post


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## GAP (5 Nov 2007)

The site is a twit site, but the idea I liked....so.......I posted it


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## The Bread Guy (24 May 2008)

*POPPY ERADICATION STRENGTHENING THE TALIBAN, EXPERTS AGREE*
NATO Parliamentary Assembly news release PR 240508 E, 24 May 08
English - 

 Eradication efforts that “fail to hold out alternative livelihoods for Afghan farmers are only strengthening support for the Taliban” in the most unstable provinces of Afghanistan, argues a NATO Parliamentary Assembly report presented by British MP Hugh Bayley today (Saturday) at the Assembly’s Spring Session in Berlin. “The opium trade is fuelling insurgency, and insurgency, in turn, is driving up opium production”, explained Mr Bayley to the members of the Assembly’s Economics and Security Committee. “There is a growing agreement among experts that simple eradication and interdiction will not break this vicious cycle”. In addition, militarization of the counter-narcotic effort could result in additional civilian casualties and alienate local Afghan leaders who provide Alliance forces with intelligence on the Taliban.

Mr Bailey’s comments were echoed by Douglas Bereuter, President of the Asia Foundation, an American NGO supporting several governance, civil society and education projects in Afghanistan . “Poppy eradication efforts to date have had mixed results”, said Mr Bereuter, a former US Congressman and NATO PA President, “with security and local cooperation being major hurdles; meanwhile, potential earnings from poppy cultivation continue to be far higher than the alternative livelihood options presented by the government”.

Mr Bayley was also sceptical about the feasibility of other approaches, such as legalising the opium trade through direct purchase of poppies for the production of painkilling medicines, as the demand for such drugs would not match the production. Instead, his report called for a greater focus on rural development strategies. Experiences in Thailand and Colombia indicate that eradication efforts can be successful only following the strengthening of police and state structures and the initiation of alternative crop projects. In Afghanistan , the need to ensure that farmers switching to alternative crops such as saffron or pistachios get safely to the markets also requires additional investment in state infrastructure.

In conclusion, Mr Bayley strongly encouraged legislators from both Afghanistan and Pakistan , present at the NATO PA Session, to push their respective governments to collaborate more on the narcotics problem, thus weakening the Taliban. Iran , which is also facing serious problems with illegal narcotics in its eastern region, could also be convinced to play a role in this struggle.

The NATO PA Spring Session, gathering some 340 national parliamentarians from the 26 NATO member countries, will meet for five days in Berlin  in the Reichstag building, until May 27.


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## daftandbarmy (24 Jun 2008)

The Taliban’s Opium War: The difficulties and dangers of the eradication program.

In the main square in Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan Province, in central Afghanistan, a large billboard shows a human skeleton being hanged. The rope is not a normal gallows rope but the stem of an opium poppy. Aside from this jarring image, Tirin Kot is a bucolic-seeming place, a market town of flat-topped adobe houses and little shops on a low bluff on the eastern shore of the Tirinrud River, in a long valley bounded by open desert and jagged, treeless mountains. About ten thousand people live in the town. The men are bearded and wear traditional robes and tunics and cover their heads with turbans or sequinned skullcaps. There are virtually no women in sight, and when they do appear they wear all-concealing burkas. A few paved streets join at a traffic circle in the center of town, but within a few blocks they peter out to dirt tracks. 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/07/09/070709fa_fact_anderson


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## Yrys (17 Dec 2008)

Pleas of Afghan ex-poppy farmers

A two-hour drive from the city of Jalalabad, on a brain-bruising dirt road, lies Gandomak.
Farmers in this remote village in Sherzad district in eastern Afghanistan say they stopped 
growing poppies last year, and are now growing wheat, vegetables and maize instead.

More than a year ago, the Afghan government backed by international forces eradicated 
their poppy fields. But locals say they are still waiting for the help they were promised.

When I was last in Nangarhar province a couple of years ago I was surrounded by poppies 
- pungent and many coloured - but this year I could see only golden wheat, green maize 
and fruit. Farmers in Sherzad agreed to eradicate the poppies after they were promised 
a road, an irrigation channel and a clinic for their village.

Sheen Goal Raza Kar was one of 1,000 farmers whose fields were wiped out - but a year 
on he is still asking for what was promised to him. "Once they dropped some medicine 
from their planes, it destroyed everything. Then they eradicated our fields and promised 
us projects, but look nothing has been given to us," he told the BBC recently.

*'Powerful people'*

The tall, bearded Sheen Goal is holding a meeting among the villagers on this windy afternoon. 
From the roof of his house overlooking his fields he lists his complaints. "They destroyed my fields 
because I was poor and they couldn't destroy those fields belonging to the powerful people at 
the time. Now I have grown tomatoes and other vegetables, but by the time I transport them 
to Jalalabad, they are all rotten."

I interview the villagers over a tasty lunch of eggs, potatoes and yoghurt; as we eat we can hear 
American drones patrolling the nearby White Mountains which border the Tora Bora cave complex 
on the Afghan side and Parachinar in Pakistan. That's when Sheen Goal points to his fields and says: 
"See for yourself what has happened to this fertile valley - there is a drought and when we collect 
the harvest, we can't take it to the city in good shape."

And everyone agrees with Sheen Goal, all trying to put forward their views. Qari Osman Sherzad, 
the eloquent 39-year-old village chief, says: "The Afghan government told them a year ago to stop 
growing poppies and the villagers were promised alternative crops and reconstruction projects. 
"As we say in Sherzad, it's give and take, not just take. Our women die before they get to hospital, 
we don't have water for our fields and the road is in bad shape."

Another villager is clearly frustrated, and wants the Afghan government to asphalt the Sherzad-Jalalabad 
road, so farmers like him can sell their products in Jalalabad and even transport them to Kabul. "I haven't 
been able to sell anything I grow this year, so we have sent our kids to brick factories in Kabul, Jalalabad 
and Pakistan to earn money. Is this justice?" the villager asks angrily as he strokes his beard.

One Afghan official in Nangarhar who requests anonymity admits the government could not deliver on its 
promises. "We promised farmers roads, irrigation channels and alternative crops, but sadly those were 
empty promises. Farmers feel they have been deceived."

*'Where is my road?'*

Sherzad district is just 55km (34 miles) east of the city of Jalalabad. It was one of the biggest 
poppy-growing districts in the remote White Mountains. Like many other districts, it's an agricultural 
area and thousands of families rely on their fields for their income.

It's thought the Afghan government has made a dramatic improvement in cutting the poppy crop 
in Nangarhar - only a few years ago it was one of the country's biggest poppy-producing provinces.

Another farmer accuses senior Afghan officials and some tribal elders of stealing the reconstruction 
money. "The world gave millions of dollars, but our government and elders stole that money. Where 
is my road and the irrigation channel?" says the farmer from the village of Toto.

Poor farmers and long-suffering villagers are paying the price, says another man, Ajmal.
"I have three sons, and I have sent them all to work in brick factories. "Since my crop was destroyed, 
I have been borrowing money so my family can have the money to buy food, but people want their 
money back and I don't have any money."


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