Poppies as legitimate industry?

[velvetpage]

http://www.herald.ns.ca/Opinion/537620.html

This seems like a good idea to me. Africa gets cheap painkillers, the pharmaceutical companies make a few bucks, and Afghanistan gets an economy that isn't built on creating misery. It's a win-win situation.

Unless, of course, you happen to be Bush & co., for whom poppies are Teh Evil because you can get street drugs from them, and we're in the middle of a War on Drugs, right?

Thanks to siobhan63 for the link.

Comments

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

This reminded me of a "news" story I saw on how apparently some troops (and versions I've seen insert the country whose citizens they want to stereotype as dingy) run into a "jungle of marijuana" and get a bright idea. They... burn it down.

A fabulous idea just formed in my head. We need to grow a humongous Mary Jane forest in Iraq, choose a day when the wind is right, and burn it. Hopefully, then all the smoke will go to the insurgents, and they'll end up mellow enough to quit fighting.

I didn't say it was a sensible idea. Just a fabulous one.