An Englishman's Castle

Telegraph | News | West 'should buy the Afghan opium crop'
The West should buy up Afghanistan's opium crop and license its use for pain-relief medicines rather than trying to destroy the crop, it is proposed today.
The Senlis Council, an international drug policy think-tank with operations in Afghanistan, says the planned deployment of 3,000 British troops to smash the narcotics trade there is doomed to fail.
The study suggests that a military response to the problem will prove ineffective and simply destabilise the country's fledgling democracy. Emmanuel Reinert, the executive director of Senlis, said: "It is totally unrealistic even to attempt to eliminate the crop.
"How can one hope to achieve stability and gain the support of the farmers for a new Afghanistan through the destruction of the crops that provide for their families?"

Quite - let Boots buy the stuff and flog it to the punters who want it - clean and legal and I wouldn't even begrudge Gordon slapping a tax on it - anything would be better than the present Drug War mess.