The solution to Afghanistan's opium?

[emad]

BBC News
By Marc Deeley
Development worker, Spirit Aid



Earlier this year the head of the United Nations drugs control agency said efforts to tackle Afghanistan's growing drugs trade were failing. The UK-based development agency Spirit Aid offers a radical solution to the problem. ...............

The organisation I work for, Spirit Aid, has developed a plan to replace Afghan opium - 75% of the global supply - with industrial hemp.


Hemp is a fast growing, legal cash crop that presents a host of immediate benefits to Afghan society, including a potentially lucrative source of foreign exchange earnings.

Hemp can be used to produce heating and cooking fuel, thereby ending the need for people to cut down and burn their remaining forests during severe winters.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3704878.stm

[pnutchuck]

1. Great Idea

How can this transition be done. I've read a couple articles concerning Hemp crops in Europe and the farmers say that the crops are expensive to produce and the governments levy heavier exporting taxes on them. Is this true?

[sui generis]

2. can't we burn opium for heating and cooking fuel?

it is kind of tarry . . . and I have the perfect little desktop hand warmer to use it in, although I have no idea what all the pipes sticking out of it are for! :evilgrin:

[Trumanway]

3. Hemp is much more safe for the growers too,...

Opium poppies are substansially more dangerous to harvest and handle. Industrial hemp is about like soybeans.