End the Opium War

Anne Applebaum calls for ending the Opium War in Afghanistan.


Excerpt:

The director of the Senlis Council, a group that studies the drug problem in Afghanistan, told me he reckons that the best way to “ensure more Western soldiers get killed” is to expand poppy eradication.


Besides, things really could get worse. It isn’t so hard to imagine, two or three years down the line, yet another emergency presidential speech, calling for a “surge” of troops to southern Afghanistan — where impoverished villagers, having turned against the West, are joining the Taliban in droves. Before we get there, maybe it’s worth letting some legal poppies bloom.

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