Poppycock! America's War on the Afghanistan Poppy

'Poppies are the raw ingredient for making opium, which can be transformed into heroin. And Afghanistan produces nearly 90 percent of the world's opium. Illicit flower power fuels the Taliban with the money to buy weapons, train fighters, bribe Afghan officials, and otherwise make war.

So the West's strategy has included an all-out effort to eradicate poppy production, both by banning the crop and by helping Afghanistan's impoverished sharecroppers switch to such alternatives as wheat and cotton. That may sound like a good strategy. But it isn't working.'

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