Opium Addiction A Reality In Taliban-Free Afghanistan

Readers will already know how I feel about the drug situation in Afghanistan. And although getting rid of the Taliban is a noble effort, it does shed light into the double standard the west has for the 'place where armies come to die'.

There is no denying that opium production and use is dramatically lower in Taliban held territories, they reached all-time lows when the fanatical sect ruled the whole country. Considering they won't even let women doctors out of the house, I am not a Taliban supporter. But to think that the Western forces are there to eradicate the opium poppies, you have drank the government Kool-aid.

The US government, be it Bush or Obama has plied the same old rhetoric that the Taliban held off production to raise the price of heroin on the open market. Bullshit - heroin was still very cheap here in the US when the Taliban were burning the poppy fields and the reason the drug is so compelling and hard to beat is the cheapness of it. Even the lowest scumbag can usually afford a fix.

So would you have seen the family in this picture if the Taliban still ruled their area? No, they would be put to death - which is horrible, but instead they become poster-children for the West and its loosing struggle called the war on drugs. None of this activity or the trillions spent on the war will change the fact that the world loves drugs.