Opium as a temporary currency?

irishmick79 · Post by **irishmick79** » 2008-08-13 07:23am

I was thinking about the war in Afghanistan, and trying to think up ways to improve the lot of farmers who focus on Opium growth and wind up helping the Taliban and other various crime groups finance their operations against NATO and Afghan forces. The idea of an opium buyback isn't a new one, but has the idea of using opium as a currency exchange tool been closely examined?

What I mean is say is what if it gets treated as collateral for farmers trying to open a bank account with the central bank or get a loan for a development project? I imagine if farmers could exchange it for hard currency or credit with the government, you might be able to find ways to better coordinate development projects, and entice farmers to participate in them. The opium that gets accepted by the bank can then either be resold on a legal market, or destroyed.

I know the idea of an opium buyback has been kicked around a lot and pushed by such groups like the Senlis Council, but I don't know to what extent people have talked about using opium in a currency exchange scheme. If you tied the Afghani to the value of something like opium, you could probably buttress the currency's value a lot. There would be a lot of legal hurdles to overcome for sure, but it seems like explicitly tying the opium trade into Afghanistan's efforts to diversify its economy need to be addressed.

Corruption and diversion of opium to the black market would still be a problem. You would definitely need a strong law enforcement presence to monitor the trade, but I think a big part of the problem in Afghanistan is taht aggressive law enforcement against the opium trade undercuts the effort to actually learn something about the internal dynamics of the trade itself. Consequently law enforcement efforts are a hit or miss affair.

Frankly, I don't know if this idea has any merit or not, but I thought it was interesting and worth exploring a little bit. Basically, it seems that the problem hinges on questions involving how much of a legal market there is for Afghan opium production and how you can tie in development to eradication efforts. Ignoring the economic value of opium and focusing on a law enforcement approach to it seems to be an inefficient solution at best, at worst counter-productive towards developing security. How would you implement an opium buyback scheme in Afghanistan?

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2008-08-13 08:09am

Have the governments buy the Opium directly. Opium has legitimate uses.

If the government is buying it, and they are nice, non-violent people, the drug lords won't be able to get nearly as much.

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2008-08-13 08:15pm

Solauren wrote:Have the governments buy the Opium directly. Opium has legitimate uses.

If the government is buying it, and they are nice, non-violent people, the drug lords won't be able to get nearly as much.

what uses? I am not asking to be a dick, but because I really don't know of any off the top of my head.

SecondStorm · Post by **SecondStorm** » 2008-08-13 08:27pm

Death from the Sea wrote:
Solauren wrote:Have the governments buy the Opium directly. Opium has legitimate uses.

If the government is buying it, and they are nice, non-violent people, the drug lords won't be able to get nearly as much.
what uses? I am not asking to be a dick, but because I really don't know of any off the top of my head.

Painkillers, most commonly Morphine.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-08-13 08:27pm

Death from the Sea wrote:
Solauren wrote:Have the governments buy the Opium directly. Opium has legitimate uses.

If the government is buying it, and they are nice, non-violent people, the drug lords won't be able to get nearly as much.
what uses? I am not asking to be a dick, but because I really don't know of any off the top of my head.

Painkillers and sedatives. You've heard of opiates, right?

Post by **Broomstick** » 2008-08-13 08:43pm

Morphine, coediene, vicondin, dilaudid, fentanyl....

Opium is the raw material for many, if not most, of mankind's painkillers, including the strongest among them. Hugely important in medicine.

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2008-08-13 11:39pm

Imperial Overlord wrote:
Death from the Sea wrote:
Solauren wrote:Have the governments buy the Opium directly. Opium has legitimate uses.

If the government is buying it, and they are nice, non-violent people, the drug lords won't be able to get nearly as much.
what uses? I am not asking to be a dick, but because I really don't know of any off the top of my head.
Painkillers and sedatives. You've heard of opiates, right?

wow. see there that was a huge brain fart. That totally slipped by me at first glance.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2008-08-14 02:40am

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. They know how to raise it, it's already a staple crop in Afghanistan, why not let them make a living out of it?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2008-08-14 03:34am

Broomstick wrote:Morphine, coediene, vicondin, dilaudid, fentanyl....

Opium is the raw material for many, if not most, of mankind's painkillers, including the strongest among them. Hugely important in medicine.

Fentanyl is synthetic.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2008-08-14 04:53am

I thought they used opium as a starting point, oh, well, can't get 100% all the time....

Setesh · Post by **Setesh** » 2008-08-14 10:00am

Broomstick wrote:I thought they used opium as a starting point, oh, well, can't get 100% all the time....

It was an attempt to make artificial morphine, but ended up several times stronger. Its classified as an oploid (opium-like effect) A few hundred morons a year shoot it up as an alternative to heroin, most of them aren't smart enough to realize its many times stronger, and its bio-availability is much higher they invariably OD the first try.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2008-08-14 10:23am

Broomstick wrote:I thought they used opium as a starting point, oh, well, can't get 100% all the time....

I started as a chemistry major and my father is an anesthesiologist. We all have our little pockets of trivia from experience in the nooks of our brain.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2008-08-14 11:05am

I have always wondered why the West was so darned obstinate about not allowing the Afghans to grow opium. There wasn't much else the Afghans could do to get access to ready currency, and stopping them from growing the plant would simply alienate them. I put it down to the usual drug phobia. If the West really wants to solve a good bit of the problem in Afghanistan, really, it should buy up the opium from the Afghans and help finance their way out of it.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2008-08-14 11:19am

Problem is, the amount of illegitimate opium far, far outweighs the legitimate need for it. If we bought all the illegal opium produced it would crash the cost of the raw material. And we wouldn't have use for all of it.

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2008-08-14 12:41pm

Broomstick wrote:Problem is, the amount of illegitimate opium far, far outweighs the legitimate need for it. If we bought all the illegal opium produced it would crash the cost of the raw material. And we wouldn't have use for all of it.

but hey if that means that it would cost less at the dr or hospital for the anesthesiologist to dope you up, then I am for that.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2008-08-14 12:49pm

Crash the value of the crop, and they'll no longer have a reason to grow it, and move to other plants. (If it's feasible)

Stormin · Post by **Stormin** » 2008-08-14 01:13pm

Solauren wrote:Crash the value of the crop, and they'll no longer have a reason to grow it, and move to other plants. (If it's feasible)

It would only crash the legal value of the crop. There's only so much need for opiates as legitimate painkillers, illegal drugs on the other hand are a pretty big and profitable market that can absorb pretty much all production it can get it's hands on.