Afghan poppies to get herbicide spray

[maddezmom]

KABUL, Afghanistan - The top U.S. anti-drug official said Saturday that Afghan poppies would be sprayed with herbicide to combat an opium trade that produced a record heroin haul this year, a measure likely to anger farmers and scare Afghans unfamiliar with weed killers.

John Walters, the director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Afghanistan could turn into a narco-state unless "giant steps" are made toward eliminating poppy cultivation.

~snip~

The Afghan government has not publicly said it will spray, and President Hamid Karzai has said in the past that herbicides pose too big a risk, contaminating water and killing the produce that grows alongside poppies.

But Walters said Karzai and other officials have agreed to ground spraying.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061210/ap_on_re_as/afghan_drugs_1

Afghanistan Opium Crop Sets Record
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2638239

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Oh, that should be popular

with Monsanto.

It will certainly drive the price up for the "licensed" growers.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Agent Orange, anyone?

[jwirr]

13. That was my thought to. If we can't lick 'em poison 'em.

[madrchsod]

4. a small field will be sprayed for the news cameras

then it`s back to business as usual...

[CueST]

5. Plan Columbia. n/t

[High Plains]

6. That's a really stupid idea; one worthy of drug czar Walters.

Hmmm, let's see: We have a weak, Western-supported Afghan government in a low-intensity civil war with the Taliban. We have opium accounting for more than a third of the national economy and employing millions of people. Our efforts to eradicate opium so far have driven numerous peasants into the waiting embrace of the Taliban. Engaging in spraying poison on their fields is an idea seemingly designed to push even more of them into the Taliban's arms.

You can have your war on terror or you can have your war on drugs. Choose one.

[Tyo]

7. The champions of Capitalism don't understand basic economics

I never got much past Econ 101 but I did pick up somewhere along the line that there is a relationship between the demand for a product and how much of the product is produced. A fall in demand will usually be followed by a fall in production (or a fall in price, which often leads to a fall in production).

If we want to stop production we ought to be working on stopping demand. However that would mean spending money here at home on those "wasteful and unnecessary" social schemes such as recovery programs, improved health care, and education.

[MGKrebs]

8. I take it the idea is to get them to stop growing poppies.

Do we have a plan for whatever else we WOULD like them to do?
Seeing as how they are farmers, perhaps we would like them to grow something else. But will the herbicide prevent other things from growing too?

[maddezmom]

9. here is what they intend on using: Glyphosate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate

I'm not knowledgeable on this subject, but I'm sure there are more than a few DU'ers that would know the answer about preventing other crops. As for any type of plan for what they do after, as usual there is no information because there isn't one.

[LeftyMom]

10. Unless they use GMO "roundup ready" crops, glyphosphate (roundup) will kill most crops.

That may be the real idea, multiple applications will make the land unsuitable to grow anything but GMO corn, soy, etc and then they can make a humanitarian case for allowing those GMO crops into the EU so the poor Afghani farmers don't turn back to poppy production.

Or they might just want to drive the price of poppies and thus heroin up, because it's at record lows and they can't finance black ops with drug funds when the drug business is poor.

[jmowreader]

11. Roundup degrades rapidly in soil

That's one of its big selling points: you can spray the living shit out of your field with Roundup, then come back after a short period of time--just a few weeks, if I remember what the Roundup rep told me--and plant anything you like. Roundup's pathway into a plant is through the leaves anyway--it's not taken up by the roots.

The price-control aspect of this is more accurate. It's also why the Taliban banned poppy production a few years ago--there was enough smack on the market, thank you very much, and the new crops were pushing down demand.

Did you ever hear of Boliviana negra? It is a coca plant that has been selectively bred for its resistance to glyphosate. IOW, a Roundup Ready coca. One of these days there will also be a Roundup Ready poppy, and a Roundup ready cannabis plant...

[yellowcanine]

15. Correct. The only long term danger to multiple applications is resistance.

Round-up Ready Poppies, anyone? Wouldn't that be a hoot?

[IndianaGreen]

12. Plan Colombia has been such a success that we want to do the same

in Afghanistan. Idiots!

[phusion]

14. lol...

Yea, these dumbfucks never learn, do they?