One of the ways by which this article rejects the idea that reducing drugs production hurts traffikers is pointing at the increasing of prices, one of the consequence of reducing supply in a monopolistic system. I strongly disagree with this statement. Even that no one can deny that mopolists everywhere try to constrain production to obtain higher prices (including oil producers), drug production is different. While for OPEC is almost costless to reduce oil quantities, for drug producers this is extremely costly. Even if prices go higher, if producing areas are less today than in the past, this means that producers are having troubles and are not feeling comfortable doing their activities, this is, there are fewer incentives to participate in illegal activities. Although higher prices increase incentives, anti-drug production actions have to effective, in a way that incentives to produce remain always very low and every day there are fewer people willing to get on the drug production business.

1. I read a few years back that a lot of the land used to grow opium is only useful for growing fruits otherwise, and that the orchards and vineyards that used to be there were destroyed during decades of war. If so, any attempt at eradication in those areas would need to coincide with replanting of those orchards and vineyards, rebuilding the infrastructure needed to get that fruit to market and keep the farmers fed and defended until they can support themselves.

2. How much of the opium crop could be used to make legal morphine for the region, instead? Combine that with factories for other basic pharmaceuticals and a lot of good could be done--for the producers AND the far-too-numerous sick people!

Prohibition is a sickening horror and the ocean of hypocrisy, incompetence, corruption and human wreckage it has left in its wake is almost endless.

Prohibition has decimated generations and criminalized millions for a behavior which is entwined in human existence, and for what other purpose than to uphold the defunct and corrupt thinking of a minority of misguided, self-righteous Neo-Puritans and degenerate demagogues who wish nothing but unadulterated destruction on the rest of us.

Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use, among all echelons of society, is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.

By its very nature, prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model - the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous and ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved. Thus the allure of this reliable and lucrative industry, with it's enormous income potential that consistently outweighs the risks associated with the illegal operations that such a trade entails, will remain with us until we are collectively forced to admit the obvious.

There is therefore an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. Anybody 'halfway bright', and who's not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem, it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand. If you are not capable of understanding this connection then maybe you're using something far stronger than the rest of us. So put away your pipe, lock yourself away in a small room with some tinned soup and water, and try to crawl back into reality A.S.A.P.

Because Drug cartels will always have an endless supply of ready cash for wages, bribery and equipment, no amount of tax money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safe again. Only an end to prohibition can do that! How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?

If you support the Kool-Aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, tortured corpses, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, economic tribulation, unemployment and the complete loss of the rule of law.

The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Regulation would mean the opposite!

Prohibition is nothing less than a grotesque dystopian nightmare; if you support it you must be either ignorant, stupid, brainwashed, insane or corrupt.

A great many of us are slowly but surely wising up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco, clearly two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant and irrational minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to your absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.

And if there's still anybody out there who doubts the CIA's involvement in drug-running, they should watch "Mike Ruppert - CIA and Drug Running (1997)"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7009998324250484369#

And if you really want to know how deep prohibition engendered corruption runs in America, then watch the following:
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKHpVw4yTb4

There is a growing international consensus that drug prohibition has been a complete failure and a public policy nightmare.

For an explanation of the problem and detailed alternative plans for regulated distribution of drugs currently controlled by criminals, see the report "After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation" by Transform Drug Policy Foundation:

http://www.tdpf.org.uk/

See also the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy:

http://www.humanrightsanddrugs.org/

and the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, and their "Vienna Declaration":

http://www.icsdp.org/

and Count the Costs, a new web-project on drug war harms:

http://www.countthecosts.org/

Nice article!
This article shows the Drug production in cost is lower in Afghanistan's.
Pdf to kindle