How Afghanistan's Opium can save the world - and itself !
In researching Funding Access-vs.-Prevention at 14th ICASA AIDS Conference in Nigeria there was this other topic, indirectly effecting the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Its wider effects on the world stage are equally staggering, and it effects every person on every continent to some extent.
The issue is the fledgling democracy of Afghanistan and threat that the illicit opium trade poses in destabilizing the democratic process and stability in the entire region. Opium is bleeding Afghanistan of its chances of democracy.
Go anywhere in southern Kandahar, Afghanistan (the former spiritual stronghold of the Taliban) and you’ll run in to poppy fields. Drive 20 minutes in any direction and you’ll find farmers busy harvesting their crop, in spite of the Interim Authority's January 2002 ban in on poppy cultivation. An estimated 1.7 million people are directly involved in opium production, as widespread and family-based poppy cultivation proliferates in 28 of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan.
Most farmers in Afghanistan will tell you openly that they will not stop growing poppies unless alternative crops can be offered to them to grow, that will reap the same amount of money.
In a country trying to rebuild itself, after the fall of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan’s poppy cultivation continues to demonstrate a significant impediment in the country's quest for peace and stability. Leaders in global counter-narcotics warn that Afghanistan is on the brink of (again) descending into lawless chaos if opium stays its single largest economic ingredient, with a high risk of it rivaling Columbia as a ‘narco-state’ on the world stage.
More threatening is that the opium business provides a lucrative and virtually risk-free resource base for warlords and provincial commanders who want to resist central control and continue to
see Afghanistan under the rule of the gun instead of the rule of law. This danger is perhaps the greatest threat to Afghanistan, for it undermines all the processes currently guiding the country towards democracy and the development of civil society. The long feared boogieman, The Taliban, regarded as terrorists by the government and the international community, are ALSO reportedly being funded by the illicit opium economy. This represents not only long term problem for Afghanistan, but a clear and present danger to the entire region and the rest of the world.
With its share of world illegal heroin growing to over 90%, this blob of a problem’s scope extends well beyond Afghanistan’s borders and is a virtual global emergency, feeding hostile and destructive trends and having an effect on peoples and societies throughout the world. Russia and Eastern Europe’s growing heroin use fuels an expanding new front in the HIV/AIDS epidemic (70% of cases in Russia related to injecting heroin use) and Western Europe represents the biggest market in monetary terms for Afghan illegal heroin (approximately $65bn).
A vicious circle to say the least. Driving supply, the worlds consuming countries have a special responsibility to respond to the opium crisis in Afghanistan. But never underestimate the Untied States’ ability to stick to a failed foreign policy.
The US State Department’s current fav “If you can’t beat’um…ya ain’t beatin’ uhm hard enough”
foreign policy, says it this threat, supports and is driving it’s policy of rapid eradication of poppy production. Strictly implemented, eradication campaigns in Iran and Pakistan have left Afghanistan today as the main producer, supplying over 75 percent of opiates globally. In 2004, the estimated quantity of opium produced within Afghanistan is expected to be at least 4,000 metric tons, representing a rising trend, which, according to statistics, looks to outstrip any reduction achieved through eradication efforts.
So now, Afghanistan produces 87 per cent of the world's opium. Now, Afghanistan is the leading world producer of opium, replacing the 'Golden Triangle' of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, which led
global production in the 1960s and 1970s. The harder the beat in t the skulls of these nations, their eradication policy, opium production increased EXPONENTIALLY in the 'Golden Crescent', which is comprised of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan in the 1980s.
OK, now for the pharmacological aspects of the global opium market
Sap from poppies is ALSO manufactured into opium which is a class-A drug sold for millions upon
millions of US dollars is the ONLY commercially available source of the pain relief drugs morphine and codeine. Opium-based medicines play a fundamental role in the global treatment of pain in four key clinical settings: cancer pain, HIV/Aids-related pain, acute post-operative pain and general chronic pain. Currently, only a few of the 80 chemical elements found in the opium poppy are considered important for medicinal purposes, however new pharmaceutically important chemical elements have been being researched and developed for decades for use as specialized pain relief elements for legal medicinal purposes. The opium poppy, dates back to the ancient Sumerians in 4000 B.C., and is an essential part of modern pain relieving medicines around the world.
Global consumption of available morphine is increasing quickly and the need for adequate and sustained pain relief in clinical settings around the world is being exacerbated by changes in global demographics and, more critical, the ever rising global levels of HIV/AIDS and cancer. This is particularly alarming when you consider that the rates for HIV and cancer in Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia are the fastest growing in the world and the unmet morphine needs for HIV/AIDS and cancer treatment in these regions are in the hundreds of tons (a ton = about 2000 pounds).
Opium based pain medicine consumption remains dominated by seven major cash rich markets, which accounts for only 24 percent of need for opium-based pain killers being met. Who are these well opiated wealthy countries, you ask? That’s right you guessed it: Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain. the UK and the good ole U.S. of A. Western European countries ALONE account for close to 90 percent of all current medical morphine consumption.
As with non-FDA retrovirals (see http://bdgstone.blogspot.com/2005/12/outrageous-scandalous-shameful.html ), the shortage of poppy/opium based medicines is basically due to exceedingly regulated and fixed market structures, imposed on the world by the U.S. Pharma Machine, which works with it’s allies in Washington to keep prices for these and other medicines high, and a low proportion of health spending on pharmaceuticals in developing countries, who denied access for failing to knuckle under to their extreme conservative ideological agenda (or greedy profiteering, if you’re the Pharma Companies – as you have to have a soul to be concerned with saving it).
Legally licensed opium production for use in the manufacture of codeine and morphine, is in critically short supply around the world. The global shortage of opium-based raw material exists due to a significantly unmet demand for opium-based medicine such as morphine and codeine in patients with moderate to severe pain.
In response to the urgent need to significantly reduce Afghanistan’s illegal opium trade – the key issue in the reconstruction of the country - The Senlis Council, a Paris-based NGO international drug policy think tank, which gathers knowledge and facilitates new ideas on global drug policy, launched a feasibility study on Opium Licensing in Afghanistan for the Production of Morphine and Other Essential Medicines.
Their study calls for the expedited and immediate legalization of Afghanistan's opium industry to turn the insolvent country from the illegal heroin trade and towards the production and supplying of legal pain medicines such as morphine and codeine.
Let’s talk dollars first. According to an Economist Intelligence Unit report from May 2004, the aggregate value of opium production in 2003 was $2.3 billion, representing more than 50 percent of Afghanistan's legal gross domestic product, and with raw opium prices estimated at $280 per kg, the per capita income from poppy cultivation for individual farming families is several times higher than the average for non-poppy cultivating farmers.
Its not rocket science people. In a country as poverty-stricken as Afghanistan, the world's second poorest according to the UN Development Program (UNDP), there is a enormous enticement to go on growing poppy. For most Afghan farmers it can mean the difference between life and death for him and his family.
So, by re-directing such a well imbedded wealth-generating commodity like opium poppy in to a formal rural economy, opium licensing can and will liberate the social and economic forces which currently have their hooks in the illegal opium economy. Legally, licensed opium could provide a reliable income to small farmers in an area where they have the expertise and experience and could also help to address the concerns over rural depopulation (large numbers of Afghans are moving to urban centers looking for work)
Better still, tax revenues generated from licensed opium production could also provide Afghanistan with funds necessary to re-establish the rule of law and building security and re-allocation of ‘eradication funds’ could be better use supporting the development of an effective system to control and monitor licensed opium.
Additionally, having a legal, taxable mechanism for opium, Afghanistan would, improve local perceptions of the Central government’s global influence and ability to provide for the general welfare, while achieving a reasonable degree of harmony in its management of authority.
It is a fact that there is an insufficient opium supply for medicine production and the world is in a global pain crisis.
It is also a fact that the illegal opium business is a cash cow for warlords and provincial commanders, as well as the Taliban, all of whom want to resist central control, making them a global long term danger to the worldwide community.
Judging by the multi-billion dollar aid package contributed every year and the military commitment of the US lead coalition, the international community obviously shares this sense of urgency for a stable Afghanistan.
It is, however, the drug policy response led by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Afghan Central Government that is SOLEY based on a combination of interdiction, eradication instead of VIABLE and REALISTIC and EQUITABLE alternative livelihood strategies that provide more than just short term returns to the Afghan Government and its people.
The legalization and licensing of opium in Afghanistan for the production ad distribution to the international pharmaceutical industry is the OBVIOUS missing link!
Call me simple, but It appears that we could kill two birds with one stone here. It would provide an economically practical and controllable response to the extraordinary nature and reach of the illegal opium economy in Afghanistan.
As always my friends, this is SPAM friendly. I leave open the option for you to email this to everyone in your address book. The way it is situated, if you have your Rich Text editor on you can cut and past it with all the pictures and links in tact as well.
First, educate yourself:
The Senlis Council : http://www.drug-policy.org/ The Senlis Council, established in 2002, is an international drug policy think tank which gathers expertise and facilitates new initiatives on global drug policy.
DrugSense-MAP - http://www.drugsense.org DrugSense exists to provide accurate information relevant to drug policy in order to heighten awareness of the extreme damage being caused to our nation and the world by our current flawed and failed "War on Drugs" and aim to inform the public of the existence of rational alternatives to the drug war.
Now do this…and ask the world why this kind of knucklehead stuff continues to happen?
Contact your elected representatives : http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home
League of Women Voters Media email database: Http://www.capwiz.com/lwv/dbq/media
TV news addresses: http://digbig.com/4bqmq
Addresses for major U.S. daily publications/wire services/weekly publications: http://digbig.com/4cqge
Major publication addresses by state: http://digbig.com/4bwxw
The issue is the fledgling democracy of Afghanistan and threat that the illicit opium trade poses in destabilizing the democratic process and stability in the entire region. Opium is bleeding Afghanistan of its chances of democracy.Go anywhere in southern Kandahar, Afghanistan (the former spiritual stronghold of the Taliban) and you’ll run in to poppy fields. Drive 20 minutes in any direction and you’ll find farmers busy harvesting their crop, in spite of the Interim Authority's January 2002 ban in on poppy cultivation. An estimated 1.7 million people are directly involved in opium production, as widespread and family-based poppy cultivation proliferates in 28 of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan.
Most farmers in Afghanistan will tell you openly that they will not stop growing poppies unless alternative crops can be offered to them to grow, that will reap the same amount of money.
In a country trying to rebuild itself, after the fall of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan’s poppy cultivation continues to demonstrate a significant impediment in the country's quest for peace and stability. Leaders in global counter-narcotics warn that Afghanistan is on the brink of (again) descending into lawless chaos if opium stays its single largest economic ingredient, with a high risk of it rivaling Columbia as a ‘narco-state’ on the world stage.
More threatening is that the opium business provides a lucrative and virtually risk-free resource base for warlords and provincial commanders who want to resist central control and continue to
see Afghanistan under the rule of the gun instead of the rule of law. This danger is perhaps the greatest threat to Afghanistan, for it undermines all the processes currently guiding the country towards democracy and the development of civil society. The long feared boogieman, The Taliban, regarded as terrorists by the government and the international community, are ALSO reportedly being funded by the illicit opium economy. This represents not only long term problem for Afghanistan, but a clear and present danger to the entire region and the rest of the world.With its share of world illegal heroin growing to over 90%, this blob of a problem’s scope extends well beyond Afghanistan’s borders and is a virtual global emergency, feeding hostile and destructive trends and having an effect on peoples and societies throughout the world. Russia and Eastern Europe’s growing heroin use fuels an expanding new front in the HIV/AIDS epidemic (70% of cases in Russia related to injecting heroin use) and Western Europe represents the biggest market in monetary terms for Afghan illegal heroin (approximately $65bn).
A vicious circle to say the least. Driving supply, the worlds consuming countries have a special responsibility to respond to the opium crisis in Afghanistan. But never underestimate the Untied States’ ability to stick to a failed foreign policy.
The US State Department’s current fav “If you can’t beat’um…ya ain’t beatin’ uhm hard enough”
foreign policy, says it this threat, supports and is driving it’s policy of rapid eradication of poppy production. Strictly implemented, eradication campaigns in Iran and Pakistan have left Afghanistan today as the main producer, supplying over 75 percent of opiates globally. In 2004, the estimated quantity of opium produced within Afghanistan is expected to be at least 4,000 metric tons, representing a rising trend, which, according to statistics, looks to outstrip any reduction achieved through eradication efforts.So now, Afghanistan produces 87 per cent of the world's opium. Now, Afghanistan is the leading world producer of opium, replacing the 'Golden Triangle' of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, which led
global production in the 1960s and 1970s. The harder the beat in t the skulls of these nations, their eradication policy, opium production increased EXPONENTIALLY in the 'Golden Crescent', which is comprised of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan in the 1980s.OK, now for the pharmacological aspects of the global opium market
Sap from poppies is ALSO manufactured into opium which is a class-A drug sold for millions upon
millions of US dollars is the ONLY commercially available source of the pain relief drugs morphine and codeine. Opium-based medicines play a fundamental role in the global treatment of pain in four key clinical settings: cancer pain, HIV/Aids-related pain, acute post-operative pain and general chronic pain. Currently, only a few of the 80 chemical elements found in the opium poppy are considered important for medicinal purposes, however new pharmaceutically important chemical elements have been being researched and developed for decades for use as specialized pain relief elements for legal medicinal purposes. The opium poppy, dates back to the ancient Sumerians in 4000 B.C., and is an essential part of modern pain relieving medicines around the world.Global consumption of available morphine is increasing quickly and the need for adequate and sustained pain relief in clinical settings around the world is being exacerbated by changes in global demographics and, more critical, the ever rising global levels of HIV/AIDS and cancer. This is particularly alarming when you consider that the rates for HIV and cancer in Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia are the fastest growing in the world and the unmet morphine needs for HIV/AIDS and cancer treatment in these regions are in the hundreds of tons (a ton = about 2000 pounds).
Opium based pain medicine consumption remains dominated by seven major cash rich markets, which accounts for only 24 percent of need for opium-based pain killers being met. Who are these well opiated wealthy countries, you ask? That’s right you guessed it: Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain. the UK and the good ole U.S. of A. Western European countries ALONE account for close to 90 percent of all current medical morphine consumption.
As with non-FDA retrovirals (see http://bdgstone.blogspot.com/2005/12/outrageous-scandalous-shameful.html ), the shortage of poppy/opium based medicines is basically due to exceedingly regulated and fixed market structures, imposed on the world by the U.S. Pharma Machine, which works with it’s allies in Washington to keep prices for these and other medicines high, and a low proportion of health spending on pharmaceuticals in developing countries, who denied access for failing to knuckle under to their extreme conservative ideological agenda (or greedy profiteering, if you’re the Pharma Companies – as you have to have a soul to be concerned with saving it).
Legally licensed opium production for use in the manufacture of codeine and morphine, is in critically short supply around the world. The global shortage of opium-based raw material exists due to a significantly unmet demand for opium-based medicine such as morphine and codeine in patients with moderate to severe pain.
In response to the urgent need to significantly reduce Afghanistan’s illegal opium trade – the key issue in the reconstruction of the country - The Senlis Council, a Paris-based NGO international drug policy think tank, which gathers knowledge and facilitates new ideas on global drug policy, launched a feasibility study on Opium Licensing in Afghanistan for the Production of Morphine and Other Essential Medicines.
Their study calls for the expedited and immediate legalization of Afghanistan's opium industry to turn the insolvent country from the illegal heroin trade and towards the production and supplying of legal pain medicines such as morphine and codeine.
Let’s talk dollars first. According to an Economist Intelligence Unit report from May 2004, the aggregate value of opium production in 2003 was $2.3 billion, representing more than 50 percent of Afghanistan's legal gross domestic product, and with raw opium prices estimated at $280 per kg, the per capita income from poppy cultivation for individual farming families is several times higher than the average for non-poppy cultivating farmers.
Its not rocket science people. In a country as poverty-stricken as Afghanistan, the world's second poorest according to the UN Development Program (UNDP), there is a enormous enticement to go on growing poppy. For most Afghan farmers it can mean the difference between life and death for him and his family.
So, by re-directing such a well imbedded wealth-generating commodity like opium poppy in to a formal rural economy, opium licensing can and will liberate the social and economic forces which currently have their hooks in the illegal opium economy. Legally, licensed opium could provide a reliable income to small farmers in an area where they have the expertise and experience and could also help to address the concerns over rural depopulation (large numbers of Afghans are moving to urban centers looking for work)Better still, tax revenues generated from licensed opium production could also provide Afghanistan with funds necessary to re-establish the rule of law and building security and re-allocation of ‘eradication funds’ could be better use supporting the development of an effective system to control and monitor licensed opium.
Additionally, having a legal, taxable mechanism for opium, Afghanistan would, improve local perceptions of the Central government’s global influence and ability to provide for the general welfare, while achieving a reasonable degree of harmony in its management of authority.
It is a fact that there is an insufficient opium supply for medicine production and the world is in a global pain crisis.
It is also a fact that the illegal opium business is a cash cow for warlords and provincial commanders, as well as the Taliban, all of whom want to resist central control, making them a global long term danger to the worldwide community.
Judging by the multi-billion dollar aid package contributed every year and the military commitment of the US lead coalition, the international community obviously shares this sense of urgency for a stable Afghanistan.
It is, however, the drug policy response led by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Afghan Central Government that is SOLEY based on a combination of interdiction, eradication instead of VIABLE and REALISTIC and EQUITABLE alternative livelihood strategies that provide more than just short term returns to the Afghan Government and its people.
The legalization and licensing of opium in Afghanistan for the production ad distribution to the international pharmaceutical industry is the OBVIOUS missing link!
Call me simple, but It appears that we could kill two birds with one stone here. It would provide an economically practical and controllable response to the extraordinary nature and reach of the illegal opium economy in Afghanistan.
As always my friends, this is SPAM friendly. I leave open the option for you to email this to everyone in your address book. The way it is situated, if you have your Rich Text editor on you can cut and past it with all the pictures and links in tact as well.
First, educate yourself:
The Senlis Council : http://www.drug-policy.org/ The Senlis Council, established in 2002, is an international drug policy think tank which gathers expertise and facilitates new initiatives on global drug policy.
DrugSense-MAP - http://www.drugsense.org DrugSense exists to provide accurate information relevant to drug policy in order to heighten awareness of the extreme damage being caused to our nation and the world by our current flawed and failed "War on Drugs" and aim to inform the public of the existence of rational alternatives to the drug war.
Now do this…and ask the world why this kind of knucklehead stuff continues to happen?
Contact your elected representatives : http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home
League of Women Voters Media email database: Http://www.capwiz.com/lwv/dbq/media
TV news addresses: http://digbig.com/4bqmq
Addresses for major U.S. daily publications/wire services/weekly publications: http://digbig.com/4cqge
Major publication addresses by state: http://digbig.com/4bwxw
