Opium: The Other Failed US War in Afghanistan

[theUnderground]

Opium: The Other Failed US War in Afghanistan
By Jason Ditz April 30, 2014

There are plenty of failures to focus on in Afghanistan, but while they usually center around the calamitous US military occupation, another US war in the country, the “war on drugs” continues apace, with similarly feckless results.

12 years into this war, and with $7.5 billion spent, the latest figures (PDF) from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) show remarkable consistency, as the US continues to throw money and manpower at poppy eradication and appears to have no real impact on cultivation or export.

2013 saw a record 2,090 square km of Afghanistan used for poppy cultivation, and the grand US eradication program managed to destroy roughly 70 of them, so roughly 3.5% of the overall total.

That’s not even slowing them down, as poppy production in 2012 was 1,540 square km, so the US eradication isn’t even putting a meaningful dent in the rate of growth of the cultivation, one of the few viable crops for many Afghan farmers.

UN estimates put the value of the crop at around $4 billion by the time it leaves the country, with farmers receiving around $1 billion of that and the rest going to the assorted bribes needed to keep the crop moving. $4 billion amounts to about 20% of Afghanistan’s nominal GDP.

Related article: How to Heroin

Absent in this is another point about the main failing war in Afghanistan. Production of opium poppies in Afghanistan, though never this high in modern history, was actually virtually nil in 2001, when the Taliban was being feted by DC drug warriors for its brutally effective crackdown on cultivation. 2014 still has most of the brutality, but none of the effectiveness, and the US seems unable to even remotely replicate the Taliban’s “success” on this front.

 

[Mudda]

The US is losing the war on heroin because of all the opioid pills being prescribed by US doctors who are creating the demand.

 

[theUnderground]

WRONG Afghanistan supply's about 90% of the worlds opium. We arrived in 2001. In the following nine years opium production has surged 700%. Recording all time record harvests beginning around 2010.

During the time opium production was being ramped up in Afghanistan, Mexico was retooling their ability to convert ever larger supply's of opium into increasingly potent heroin and developing new infrastructure to transport it.

During the decade or so all this was going on in Afghanistan and Mexico, scripts here in America for Oxycontin, Fentanyl, Hydrocodone and the like were wildly available to any person claiming chronic pain. Nothing was done to confirm the claims of pain, sorta like the stated income, liar loans that set up the housing collapse. Basically scripts were available to almost anyone for the asking.

That all ended one day in 2011.

Almost overnight The Oxycontin and Fentanyl was turned into useless plastic and millions of scripts across the country were shut down with the exception of those few in truly chronic pain.

Simultaneously and amazingly as if by magic, that very day every city in America suddenly had a fresh two ton supply of high quality vary affordable heroin. In fact the prices have never been lower and the quality never higher.

They turned the greatest country in the world into a fuckin' zoo. Fuck da police.

 

[theUnderground]

the American Drug Cartel

By Christopher Rice and Anonymous
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Finally admit that the 'war on drugs' was lost. 'Just say no' was another joke. Education through the 'Dare' program failed. Putting people in jail fails. Rehab programs are money makers with a very low success rate. I am someone who went through the hell of addiction.



As someone who suffers from chronic pain and cannot afford a "pain clinic", I have developed a hatred for the AMA and big pharma. They release these horror stories about opiates, causing the government to tighten restrictions on their use. Any amount over a small amount, you've got to go to a "pain clinic". These clinics are very expensive. Has anyone else noticed the explosion in the numbers of these very lucrative "pain clinics" in the last few years. These periodic release about the horrors of opiates are only for the purpose of keeping these very lucrative businesses in business and being the only legal avenue of relief for many people.



This is the American Drug Cartel. I think I like the Mexican ones better. At least they don't hide their criminality behind a false face of concern for our health.



Related article: Why is marijuana illegal?



I live in Kentucky and we are one of the states that lost a generation to prescription drugs. When the MDs and Pill Mills started closing the addicts turned to heroin. My childhood MD just had his office raided by the DEA this week. My old Senior Medical Officer in the Navy was busted running a pill mill in Florida, it was the largest in state history at that time. Even my old childhood dentist has been sanctioned in my state for over prescribing. This epidemic is not medicine, its racketeering, drug dealing, and stuff that makes the mob look honest.



This is happening every single day in every single state. People use big pharma opiates till it becomes cheaper to use the root drug. The level of corruption is phenomenal and no one does anything about it.



One dealer/Pain Clinic will shut down and another will open up.

Related: Underground America is back online. How to beat the police, CPS, DEA, FBI, IRS and NSA. How to beat any drug test, police sting and how to beat your court case and more.



If the addicts can't get there meds in the pain clinics, they often go to the ER knowing they have to be treated. It is there that they receive their "cocktail". We are in a different world, say goodbye to the usual street corner junkies because they are now outnumbered by many so called educated working men and women who are addicted to pain meds.



Meanwhile, people with legitimate needs have been screwed over by the DEA rooting around in their treatment, making decisions with non medical goals in mind.


Doctors have been so afraid to prescribe any narcotics and as a pain patient for fifteen years from a thirty five foot fall at work, I have chronic pain and had to call fifty doctors before I found one with the balls to prescribe a narcotic. I am on Fentanyl now but it doesn't work like Methadone and even my doc won't give me Methadone 'cuz he's afraid of it, but I'm afraid this pain will kill me and he needs to give me what works for me but so far I am in great pain so he can be comfortable. The new regulations doctors have to go by disenfranchise patients and many turn to heroin or suicide because doctors are afraid to take on pain patients that have pain that only narcotics help. I am not an abuser of medication I was sentenced to pills for life because I did my job.



Related article: Prescription Drugs Now Kill More People In The US Than Heroin And Cocaine Combined



Statistics show that about 90% of heroin users are white men and women who first tried prescription painkillers. The total number of addicts is about half a million, with approximately 3,000 deaths from the drug in 2010. But those numbers pale in comparison to the impact of opioid painkillers, such as oxycodone.



There are more than two million Americans hooked on these legal medications, which killed 16,651 people four years ago. There could have been more, but oxycodone has become more expensive and more difficult to abuse, so some users switch to heroin.


“Now they’re using [heroin] as a default drug,” Dr. Theodore J. Cicero, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, told the Inquirer. “They’d really prefer to go back to prescription drugs, but they couldn’t afford them. They wanted to get high, but mostly they didn’t want to get sick” with withdrawal.



Related: Underground America is back online. How to beat the police, CPS, DEA, FBI, IRS and NSA. How to beat any drug test, police sting and how to beat your court case and more.



Florida was once a haven for pill mill operators, attracting addicts and drug dealers from around the country. But a statewide crackdown on pain clinics sent the operators scrambling to set up shop in Georgia, Tennessee and other states.

The United States is in the grip of a prescription drug epidemic that kills 144 people each day from overdose, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


If Congress, Senate and State Governors-lawmakers were given a drug test, how many do you think would pass? And how many would fail?



It's time for the DEA to be de-funded and abolished. Using words like addict to demonize you but if you choose to use or consume food, drink, or "drug" it is not the place of government to get involved. When government hinders the pursuit of happiness, when the government hinders freedom and liberty, we are in essence paying for our own abuse. Prohibitions only success has been in justifying the over bloated budgets of the DEA and other government agencies fighting the so-called "war on drugs".



Big pharmaceuticals are the real drug dealers.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

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