The Heroin Epidemic, and how MSM missed it again

So I was watching John Oliver do a decent episode on America's opium epidemic. While he did a good take-down of the drug makers, I kept waiting for him to mention the most important element in the epidemic - where the opium comes from - but he never did.
Watching Oliver, you would be left with the impression that opium comes from a chemistry set. However, the U.N. didn't forget where it comes from.

Opium production in Afghanistan has increased by 43% in the past year, United Nations officials have said.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the area used to farm the poppy plant, the source of opium, increased by 10% to 201,000 hectares

poppies.PNG

Just 355 hectares (877 acres) of poppies were eradicated by provincial authorities in the last year - down more than a 90% since 2015, when almost 4,000 hectares were cleared.

Funny how liberals of today, can't seem to put three and three together: 1) America's opium epidemic, 2) Our forever war against some terror, and 3) Why we can't defeat the Taliban.
We already know that the opium trade fuels the Taliban, in the same way the oil trade fueled ISIS, and the Taliban functions like a cartel.
Which brings up the obvious question of: why don't we bomb the opium fields of Afghanistan the same way we bombed the oil wells of Iraq? The answer is obvious.

This year, however, the new security chief for the Ministry of Counternarcotics, Maj. Rahmatullah Alokozai, whose main duty is opium eradication, has declared there will be none in 2016...
But Major Alokozai’s critics say he is clearly not interested in trying, complaining that he is not only unqualified for such a crucial position, but that the large amount of money he paid for his job suggests there is money to be made by canceling eradication.

It's not really surprising that opium production and corruption have gone out of control at the same time.

Public anger over rampant graft in the country is a major reason many Afghans are dissatisfied with the Western-supported government and have turned toward the Taliban insurgents.

Afghanistan is a narco-state on its way to becoming a failed sate.
The American news media has consistently ignored the complicity, consequences, current conditions, and inevitable outcome of our policies created by both political parties.
That the opium epidemic could be discussed without mentioning the narco-state that produces 90% of the world's opium, where we've been fighting a war for 15 years is just journalism malpractice.

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wonder if our government/military/TPTB isn't cashing in on the heroin trade in Afghanistan. I know it's a fairly large country but someone is letting somebody grow poppies. You would think poppy fields would be pretty visible from the air and with satellites.
But in retrospect, I know our government wouldn't be involved in something so sleazy as heroin/drugs.....and smuggling arms and chemical weapons...now the Russians otoh....

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Amanda Matthews's picture

do and not end up bankrupt.

***
LINK TO ARTICLE ON CIA DRUG SMUGGLING

Overwhelming Evidence That the CIA is Smuggling Drugs for Decades

http://humansarefree.com/2015/02/overwhelming-evidence-that-cia-is.html

END OF LINK TO CIA DRUG SMUGGLING
***

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Wink's picture

sure if the US Treasury gets a slice of the opium pie, but somebody does, and it likely funds "black ops," if not more (incuding our -ahem- "war on drugs"). And, two, puts a dent in the p.o.c. and lower class populations. What's not to love?!

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

is sometimes motivated by the knowledge said drug will become less profitable if legal.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

it took for our spooks to get another shipment out of the Land Where Empires go to Die.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Meteor Man's picture

Is there even a remotely credible argument that tons of drugs can be shipped right under the nose of the CIA?

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

thanatokephaloides's picture

The CIA Tracks Every Single Drug Shipment. Is there even a remotely credible argument that tons of drugs can be shipped right under the nose of the CIA?

Yes.

There's something going on here akin to the never-ending conflict between weapon makers and armor makers, with neither side ever achieving a decisive once-and-for-all win.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

thanatokephaloides's picture

But in retrospect, I know our government wouldn't be involved in something so sleazy as heroin/drugs.....and smuggling arms and chemical weapons...now the Russians otoh....

You forgot your snark tag!

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

it's hard to be snarky when so many around here are so serious all. the. time....OK, a priest, a rabbi and a monkey walk into a bar. STOP. THIS IS A JOKE. IT'S NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
Ah...forget it.....

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bondibox's picture

It shows a peak in 2007 and then when Obama became president it dropped precipitously. For a few years, now hitting new highs. Looks like Obama started with good intentions and recently gave up.

If/Because the government is running the heroin trade there's a lot of money in play. And if Obama is complicit in the production increase it makes you wonder what he'd be using the money for. Which regimes are being destabilized as I type? Where is the next Syria going to be?

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F the F'n D's

Meteor Man's picture

Vietnam fueled the massive supply of drugs available for recreational use during the 60's and early 70's. A whole lot of soldiers were sending happy packages home encased inside speakers and stereo systems.

We had black Afghan hash, opium and opiated black Afghan hash. Thai Sticks were a real treat. Soldiers stationed in Germany carried a soft brown hash home for the holidays. Then there were the unknown quantities of drugs shipped by the CIA:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_traffi...

Gary Webb's career was ruined in spite of, or because of his investigative reporting:

While finding this part of the series unsupported, Schou said that some of the series' claims on CIA involvement are supported, writing that "The CIA conducted an internal investigation that acknowledged in March 1998 that the agency had covered up Contra drug trafficking for more than a decade." According to Schou, the investigation "confirmed key chunks of Webb's allegations." In a later article in the LA Weekly, Schou wrote that Webb was "vindicated by a 1998 CIA Inspector General report, which revealed that for more than a decade the agency had covered up a business relationship it had with Nicaraguan drug dealers like Blandón."[78]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb

I guess you could say war is good for something. Of course total legalization of all drugs would be a complete disaster for narcotic traffickers or "narco terrorists" if you prefer.

There is no law enforcement solution to the problem of drug addiction. Incarceration is not a solution for drug abuse. The only solutions to a drug "epidemic" are mental health and social services solutions.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Azazello's picture

We used to get Thai stick from Navy guys in San Diego.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Amanda Matthews's picture

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

stuff made it to Maine in the seventies. Whaddya mean, NO SEEDS?!?
Well, every once in a great while.

peace

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

"Of course total legalization of all drugs would be a complete disaster for narcotic traffickers or "narco terrorists" if you prefer."
And even worse for our spies' black budget and our bankers income.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Pricknick's picture

to mention the direct correlation between the massive quantity of oxycontin being prescribed and how many who are hooked on it can and do get heroin for less.
Hook them. Make it unaffordable.
Oxy is a gateway drug to heroin use.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

snoopydawg's picture

Many people have chronic pain and because the DEA puts pressure on doctors writing pain med prescriptions, these people are being cut off and left in pain with no options. That when they turn to heroin or anything they can get to deal with the pain.
There have been more people committing suicide because they can't stand the unrelenting pain. And why should they? Not when there is a drug that can alleviate their pain.
They don't regulate how much insulin diabetics get, so why do they think they should regulate the amount of pain medication for people in chronic pain?
There was a law passed that let doctors treat people in pain but now they are changing the rules
Oliver didn't talk about the opium epidemic, he's talking about the opioid epidemic.
Look at the comments in this article from this video and see how many people are suffering because of the new rules.
The withdrawals are like having a bad case of the flu for two weeks or longer.
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/john_oliver_opioid_addiction_today_...
People are getting cut off their prescriptions and then they have to suffer through withdrawals.
And that doesn't mean that they are addicted to the pain meds, it means that they are dependent on them.
Many studies have shown that the body's of people who have pain is metabolized differently then people who take the meds to get high.
I hope people will look at these comments and understand how bad this is for many people.
I am on a very strong opioid but I don't get a buzz from taking it.
I have chronic pain and I have been lucky enough to find a pain doctor that prescribes the right amount of pain medication for me to get out and do things, but at my last appointment she said that she is getting pressure from the DEA and the organization she works for to start cutting people's pain medication down.
Is there a problem with people getting OxyContin and snorting it or abusing other drugs? Of course there is.
But there are the others who depend on the drugs so that they can have some type of quality of life.
My opinion is that people who have a chronic condition should be involved with a pain clinic and not get their meds from their GP, but there are many pain clinics that are steroid factories. They make people have to get steroid injections in order to get a prescription, but that's where they make their money.
So this isn't a black and white issue.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

They're getting touchy about prescription opiates even in small amounts. I had a root canal, a procedure worthy of it's ill reputation, and there was mild attempts to dissuade me from getting a small amount of hydroxycodone just in case (and it certainly was the case). In the past, no one batted an eye but both the dentist and the pharmacist seemed a bit skeptical about the whole thing.

There was a period back in the 60s or 70s where in response to the amount of recreational drug use they decided to clamp down on prescribed pain medication. Now it appears like were headed back that way again. It's barbaric to deny pain relief to people just on the ground that someone, somewhere might use the drugs in a non-medicinal fashion.

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snoopydawg's picture

Throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Anyone who has a surgical procedure should have the option of being prescribed pain medication. They don't need to give a 30 day supply, but at least something for a week in case there is pain afterwards.

I agree that root canals reputations are deserved.
I had 15 of them and because of the reconstructive surgery there was a lot of scar tissue and nerve damage so it was difficult for the dentist to get me numb. It usually took 3 hours and up to 8 injections to get me numb. After spending all that money and suffering the root canals, the teeth started breaking off anyway and I ended up with dentures. Hindsight, I would have had them pulled and saved thousands and a lot of pain.
I hope that you are doing okay.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Lookout's picture

to have journalism malpractice. All the corporate media have are teleprompter readers... and they better not go off script if they know whats good for them.

Thanks for the reminder about our heroin problem and your usual insights.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Meteor Man's picture

For generations opium has been a staple crop:

"The major source of income for people in Helmand is opium," he says.

Abdullah says his family grows about 150 pounds and make about $9,000 a year, which is four times what they can make from any other crop.

"We understand that opium is bad," he says. "All drugs are bad. But, it's difficult for us seeing a neighbor with a new car when we are riding bicycles. So, we have to do this to have a better life."

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/14/245040114/afghan-farmer...

Opium is nothing new under the sun:

The oldest scriptures mentioning the cultivation of poppy have been found on Sumerian clay tablets that date back to 3400 BC. Through the Assyrians, for whom poppy was considered the “plant of life” and the “medicine of the gods,” the cultivation of opium poppy spread to Egypt, with Thebes as its centre, and to Cyprus in the 13th century BC. A statue of the Minoan ‘Moon Goddess of Gasi’ found on Crete and shown in the Museum of Heraklion, wears an opium poppy crown with the pods scratched (a photo here)

https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/on-the-cultural-history-of-opium-an...

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Azazello's picture

It mostly affects the white working class. Some are comparing the death rate to the AIDS epidemic but nobody cares because of who the victims are; poor whites.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Now if it was a plague on the in-the-news-of-liberals-minority-group-today, they would care.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

Liberals don't really care about the opioid epidemic.

And from a purely political standpoint, they shouldn't. Conservatives shouldn't, either.

Our country did just fine with totally legal narcotics prior to 1914, and with codeine and paregoric still available to identifiable responsible-age adults into the 1970's.

The mis-guided and often cruel attempts to "control" opiate abuse through criminal prohibition have actually done almost all the harm here, by denying reasonable access to narcotic medications for reasonable purposes. Pain patients who should only have to deal with their own doctors, who in turn should only answer to reasonable standards of scientific medicine, instead have the God-damned DEA up their asses every step of the way, taking every possible opportunity to deny these drugs to people who honestly need them. Result? These same once law-abiding citizens can only get their quite legitimate needs met by patronizing their friendly local heroin pusher. And the results of that fact are exactly what you state:

Some are comparing the death rate to the AIDS epidemic but nobody cares because of who the victims are; poor whites.

Like all drug addiction issues, the only human activities with any effective success against opioid abuse are medical ones. (Example: tobacco, especially cigarette.) Criminalization only fills for-profit prisons. In this case, with poor working-class white people and ethically innocent pain sufferers. This is a lesson we should have learned once and for all with alcohol prohibition, but because we didn't learn it, we traded Al Capone for the ilk of Pablo Escobar we still have with us today.

The DEA needs to be abolished. Now.

Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Crider's picture

War is the opium of the oligarchy.

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Bisbonian's picture

of the Monarchy.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Meteor Man's picture

Follow the money. As usual, there's a trade agreement lurking in the background:

During 1856–1860, British forces fought towards legalization of the opium trade, to expand coolie trade, to open all of China to British merchants, and to exempt foreign imports from internal transit duties. France joined the British. The war is also known as the "Arrow War", referring to the name of a vessel at the starting point of the conflict. The Arrow War resulted in a second group of treaty ports being set up; eventually more than 80 treaty ports were established in China, involving many foreign powers. All foreign traders gained rights to travel within China.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

thanatokephaloides's picture

/snark

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

From what I vaguely understand, the original Taliban suppressed opium production for both moral and power reasons. The war lords who the Taliban opposed got bunches of money growing the stuff. After control of the Taliban was broken, the war lords starting growing again. I think at this point the new Taliban jumped in and started demanding protection money from the war lords. In effect, our war lord allies were in league with the Taliban.

Looks like the Taliban is now growing the poppy seeds themselves. Probably same protection schemes with war lords in other areas.

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we live in nys 100 miles from nyc, and our county is experiencing an explosion of use of heroin;
i'm a child's lawyer in the family court and of late there has been an increase in cases due to the parents' use of the drug while supposedly taking care of their infants, some of whom are born addicted to the drug

this kind of case used to be relatively rare

most of the users are young, not monied, not educated, not learning a living, and having babies

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