British Pols Call for Legal Opium Trade
In a surprise use of rationality, several Conservative British politicians are calling for the opium industry in Afghanistan to become legalized and regulated. Conservative Party leader David Cameron is among the most important voices in the discussion, which arose primarily in response to reports from British military officers in southern Afghanistan regarding the opium eradication project.
These officers have reported a wasteful over-insistence upon eradicating the opium industry by NATO coalition forces that has ultimately resulted in the strengthening of the Taliban. An enormous amount of time and money has been spent trying to eradicate the opium trade in Afghanistan, which makes up about 50% of the struggling nation’s economy. Since much of this industry consists of small farmers who rely on poppy cultivation as their sole means of income, the result of the eradication movement has been a bolstering of the Taliban’s ranks. The Taliban takes in these left-with-no-choice farmers and gives them food in exchange for support.
Torry whip Tobias Ellwood has also argued that legalizing and regulating the Afghan opium industry would also help solve the reported opium shortage in the medical industry and reduce the amount of opium that finds itself in heroin-development labs. A similar argument is made by Italian vice foreign minister Ugo Intini here. Furthermore, a generally stronger Afghan economy intrinsically weakens the Taliban, which thrives on taking in those with no options.
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