Thanks once again to Pete Guthier’s Drug War Rant, I’ve been directed to an AP story on Yahoo news that points to the all-time high amount of opium cultivation that is currently taking place in Afghanistan.

According to the article, the West has spent millions in counternarcotics money, only to see opium cultivation go up by 40% in the last year. The Taliban (big surprise–see my last post) had virtually eradicated the opium trade when it was ousted five years ago, but is now reportedly using drug money, as large-scale dealers and religious insurgents now face a common enemy: us.

The problem here is that we want to Westernize these Middle Eastern countries as much as possible by introducing democracies and free market economies, but don’t quite see that, especially the latter, allows for the laws of supply and demand to dictate production. Guthier makes a similar point in his post. The soundest economic option for Afghan farmers is to grow opium, so why wouldn’t they?

See this previous post for British politician’s reaction to the opium eradication project in Afghanistan.

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