Thursday, September 02, 2004
 
Glenn Asks, Brian Answers

Instapundit asks:
    While I'm (sort of) on this topic, why doesn't the United States address the Afghan opium trade by just buying the stuff up? Presumably, farmers would be just as happy to sell their poppies to us, and that would keep them off the market, as well as depriving bad guys of a revenue source. Am I missing something here?
Just the law of supply and demand. Another purchaser on the market would only drive the price up, which would provide incentive for growers to grow more. Illicit purchasers would have to illicitly get more money, which means more crime eventually to support more expensive drug habits and more crime between the people in the industry.

Perhaps poppy farm subsidies are the answer, except poppy farmers would have incentive to take money for not growing poppies and to then grow poppies.

We'd have to chose a better solution from one of the following:
  • Drug legalization. I bet there are a number of New York tourists right now who would like an over-the-counter opiate to help them over their hangovers. Some of us in the heartland, too.

  • Increased demand for intact poppies. The VFW could switch from paper forget-me-nots to real ones. The United States could use poppies in the official currency paper, although this might lead to more people licking their dollar bills (although it's common practice in the Noggle household to lick money for the trace amounts of cocaine rumored to be in the bills). People could say I love you with dozens of poppies. However, until drugs are legalized, the government will strictly hamstring your FTD florist.
I did mention I am on the libertarian fringe of the Republican party did I not?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:46 AM
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