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Plainsman1963

Drug War allowed to get in the way of Terror War
09-13-06 | HuffingtonPost.Com | Bill Maher

Afghanistan is a mess. The Taliban is back and has mounted serious offenses in recent weeks. NATO says they need more troops. And why is the Taliban back? Well, one of the reasons people are pointing to is our government's plan to eradicate opium. We've hired a corporation to go through the fields of the poorest farmers in Afghanistan and destroy their opium crop.

And it's really worked too - opium production is at its highest levels ever. But the rural farmers who grow the opium have turned on the Americans and Brits for destroying their crop, and this is where the Taliban is re-gaining control. Coincidence? Who's to say?

But I noticed in the recent drug survey - the same one that said baby boomers were getting high while their children say "no" - about 6 percent of people said they had used marijuana in the past month. About 4 percent of people surveyed said they had used methamphetamine. 2.6 percent said they had abused prescription drugs. Just about 1 percent said they had used cocaine.

Heroin? Only 0.1 percent used heroin.

So why worry so much about the opium crop in Afghanistan when Americans don't really have a heroin problem? We're sacrificing the war on terror in the vain hope of one day helping Courtney Love kick her smack habit?

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.

 

wondrous

God I love Bill Maher...

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dredpiratrobert

.1 percent is still a problem. I know that is .1% of the survey participants but if that represents .1% of the US populous it's about 300,000 people. YES, three-hundred-thousand smack addicts ... that's a significant ammount of suffering and it downplays the number of people physically addicted to other opium based substances like codeine, morphine, oxycontin, demerol, hydrocodone, valium and more. add those guys in at 2.6% of the population and that is another Seven Million-Eight hundred thousand (7,800,000) people who suffer from opium related drugs. Granted Hydrocodone is synthetic but it is not much different from the origional source, with added tylenol to complicate the liver further! So How can you say US has no Opiate troubles? 8,100,000 opiate drug addicts is a significant ammount of suffering... 8,100,000 !!




I'm not saying that I agree with erradication, just that I dont agree with the attitude that Heroin isn't a problem therefore we should ignore the problem. Crossing swords with the taliban in the dope farm region will only make it more difficult to get the poor farmers into democracy wont it?

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walstmonky

dredpiratrobert, I could be wrong but I doubt that the raw materials for pharmas comes from illicit opium fields in Afghanistan. If so, those using pharmaceuticals are irrelevant to the subject. Also, the 2.6% figure seems to include all pharmas which are abused, of which opiate derivitaves will only be a percentage.

More to the point is that since the so called eradication program has been in effect that raw opium is flowing out of the Afghani fields in substantial quantities.

enlighten

Valium is a benzodiazepine, not an opioid.

 

dredpiratrobert

yah- enlighten and Valstmonky are both right... it just got me a little steamed that someone would say "there is no heroin problem" in the US... even if there were no heroin in the entire USA it would be a problem elsewhere. I tried real hard not to go to flames on that.

Malinkordt Pharma has a license to import raw precurors for opiate pain killers. It's the only company allowed to do so. They are the makers of Hydrocodone "Viccodin". If you ever get a whole bottle of the name brand stuff, it says their name on it. I think mostly the raw material is used to produce Codeine and Morphine though.

Not all morphine is made synthetic- though most analouges are. The addiction is virtually the same. Synthetic heroin is just as dangerous as the brown stuff if not more so, people who think pharma drugs are "safe" are only fooling themselves and possibly others.

The numbers of people who use pain medication daily without prescriptions are huge. In the millions perhaps. Even more people use daily with a perscription, many times a doctor just "looks the other way" and writes a 'scrip. Sometimes there's nothing they can do for the older patients- and the sick people stay hooked because their bodies can't handle withdrawl without catastrophic lapse of structural integrity (death)...

Anyone who has ever broken a bone or had major surgery knows how good it is to have opiate pain-killers when really necessary. I wouldn't expect anyone in serious pain to go without... OK?

Thanks for reading this SH** and correcting me---

Buzzby

It was mentioned on the Colbert Report tonight that Afghanistan opium production this year exceeded the world demand by 30%.

If you're heavily invested in opium futures, now is the time to get out.

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walstmonky

Whaddaya mean 'get out'???? Time to make those short sales!

(note to all: selling short is simply the act of selling a security first, and buying it to close the transaction rather than vice versa. You make money if the price of the security declines, lose money if it goes up)