Some people have accused US puppet Hamid Karzai of being soft on opium farming, even going so far as to protect the narcotics traffickers and opium producers because they are political allies.
So, with all the protections we have in the US from terrorist attacks, how does the heroin make it's way into the US?
"It's very difficult to say which smugglers are in the government," Hassenzoi said. "I don't know names. But I believe there are people in the government, and that is why we can't stop the smuggling. These people in the government are driving cars without license plates and with dark windows. Nobody knows who they are. Nobody can stop them."
The fall out from all this is that heroin use is rising among teenagers across the US. In order to prevent the Taliban from getting more recruits, we should look the other way while teenagers like Amy Bousfeld die? That is a sick foreign policy and a hypocritical drug policy.
The Taliban never attacked us on 9/11. After we invaded that country in 2001, following the attacks, we allowed al Qeada to slip into Pakistan while we installed former oil executive Karzai as a puppet president so that UNOCAL could build a pipeline through that country from the oil fields of Russia to port in Pakistan. During the jihad following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI used opium cultivation to fund the muhajadeen, but the Taliban had eradicated nearly all opium cultivation from Afghanistan.
Now the US government, not being satisfied with sending young men and women to their deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, have decided that the possibility of your child OD'ing isn't as important as achieving it's goals in the Middle East. Are we safer now that instead of our children becoming methheads, they're becoming junkies instead?
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My observation (based on working in Iran during the mid-1970s): these governments don't give a flying F#$% about drug laws. They're just giving it lip service in order to placate the U.S. In the '70s the Shah of Iran (supposedly) was a gung ho drug warrior. He put up a good show. Drug smugglers were executed twice a week at the Iran-Afghanistan border.
But once you were inside the country away from the borders, it was the biggest drug haven I've ever seen; even more than Afghanistan or Nepal. Hash and opium were everywhere; heroin was dirt cheap and almost 100% pure. I actually tried it a few times because it was pure enough, you don't need to use a needle. Just sprinkle a little bit on a piece of tinfoil, light a match underneath it, and breathe in. One hit will do you. Interesting high, but basically I stuck to hash.
Anyway, I suspect Afghanistan's Powers That Be are giving lip service to America's war on drugs, while secretly encouraging the opium growers and heroin smugglers.
Turns out heroin and opium can't be made withoutthe chemical solution know as Acetic anhydride.
According to the Middle East Times "None... are manufactured in Afghanistan. In all, some 11,000 tons of chemicals were required to process opium in Afghanistan during 2007".
They also say that "The chemicals are smuggled into Afghanistan from China, India, Pakistan, and the Central Asian Republics".
And more " Most of the processing labs are located in southern Afghanistan, close to opium sources and under the protection of the TALIBAN ( sort of put doubt on your statement that "In pre-invasion Afghanistan, the Taliban had successfully eradicated the opium poppy cultivation trade") Smaller refineries, including numerous mobile labs( sort of like meth labs) , are scattered around other parts of the country, with many located near border areas for easy transit of the refined heroin. Most small labs consist of little more than a heating device, raw opium, and a few drums of chemicals".
Or even this. "Prior to the arrival of the Taliban in 1996, there were considerably more processing labs located in Pakistan's tribal areas, but most of them moved into Afghanistan, where they could operate openly under the protection of the TALIBAN. Increased interdiction efforts by Afghan authorities the last few years have driven some Afghan heroin labs back into Baluchistan, on the Pakistani side of the border".
Wait, I thought the USA was the country or regime to blame?
This info is all due to Professor James Emery, who is just an anthropologist and journalist who has reported on regional conflicts and the drug trade for more than 20 years, including five years overseas. He's made several trips into Afghanistan, Myanmar, and other drug-producing and transit countries.
It is clear to most that the Taliban are the political group who are allowing heroin production to reach record high's.
Read the whole 8 part article here:
http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/04/30/afghanistans_opium_dilemma/6923/
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