In Change of Tactics, UN Now Hopes for ‘Flood of Drugs’ in Afghanistan

UN Drug Chief: "There will be so much opium inside Afghanistan"

by Jason Ditz, May 31, 2009

After admitting the attempt by international forces was “incompetent and inefficient,” the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime is unveiling its most surprising new strategy yet. They are now seeking to inundate Afghanistan with a “flood of drugs” in an effort to drive prices down enough that farmers will grow wheat instead.

“We want to create a flood of drugs within Afghanistan. There will be so much opium inside Afghanistan unable to go out that the price will go down,” according to UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa.

For a nation full of poppy farmers, flooding the streets with opium will be the easy part. However in a nation where international forces are struggling to even control some districts, keeping that opium from getting out across any one of the nation’s porous borders seems like wishful thinking, at best.

If the international forces had any serious control over what does and doesn’t cross Afghanistan’s borders, they presumably wouldn’t be facing a never ending flow of insurgents crossing back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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