BF2S Forums Russia seeks U.S. help in fight against heroin epidemic

FEOS wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Because its the Afghans best cash crop.
Try telling the Dutch to grow sprouts instead of tulips.

Wrong.

See tables 1 and 2, page 3.

On a $/hectare basis, poppy is marginally better than wheat or corn, far outstripped by perennial crops like apricots, grapes, pomegranates, and almonds.

Hence alternative development efforts like USAID's and others.

Agreed but all those are fruit bearing trees (except grapes). In any case to develop an orchard from scratch requires several years of investment,.. try selling that to the poor Afghan who wants to eat today.

Dilbert_X wrote:

They'll get there in the end, I doubt Afghanistan has the infrastructure now to export apricots and grapes.
Which is why we should be:
Helping them set up the infrastructure
Buying up the heroin in the meantime

Instead of spending billions on military operations which so often backfire.
'Hearts and minds' doesn't mean splattering organs over the countryside.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Li … t#Progress

mcminty wrote:

lowing wrote:

However, I do not care about drug users or criminals. Both the same worthless pieces of shit to me. I am not interested in rehabilitation. If a criminal or a drug user wants rehabilitated, they can pay for it, or charity can pay for it, AFTER their punishment.

I'm not saying that you should care about them enough to go "here, I'll pay for your rehab".. but you should be mindful of such groups as they do generate secondary criminal activity (to support the drug habit), which does spill out into other groups in society. I guess I used "care" in that sense of the word.

I am mindful, and so is every other law abiding citizen, which is why we are gun owners in this country.

Shahter wrote:

lowing wrote:

Shahter wrote:

i do hope so. nobody should have to go through that shit.

You say that as if they didn't have a choice.

they had, thay just made the wrong one. everybody does that from time to time.

yup and like everyone else, you live with your decisions.

Also it isn't like the choice was not clear as to which path you should go down. You say this as if it were the same as choosing a restaraunt and you just chose a bad one, better luck next time.

If you do not see a difference between choosing drugs or not to every dsay decision making, you are in trouble and will probbly wind up a crack whore yourself.

Last edited by lowing (2009-12-11 08:53:20)

Shahter wrote:

lowing wrote:

Shahter wrote:

they had, thay just made the wrong one. everybody does that from time to time.

yup and like everyone else, you live with your decisions.

yeah. very few live alone and don't affect the lives of the others though. pray that you'll never have to find out what it's like when somebody you really care for makes one of those wrong choices.

Sorry no chance, I do not hang out with people facing that ever so tough decision as to whether or not they should shoot heroin or not.

I also am not raising anyone like that.

FEOS wrote:

You act as if we're not building up their infrastructure now (and haven't been doing so for the past eight years).

Apparently, we are buying up the heroin...on the open market.

Haven't seen any reports on the infrastructure work.

We're letting the Taliban take their cut, which is financing their operations.

I bet it would be effective all round to just let the Afghans grow it and buy it all.

FEOS wrote:

You act as if we're not building up their infrastructure now (and haven't been doing so for the past eight years).

Apparently, we are buying up the heroin...on the open market.

it doesn't work, though. apparently taliban were a lot better at combating opium production than you have even been with all your infrustructure building and economical aid for the needy and oppressed.

lowing wrote:

Shahter wrote:

very few live alone and don't affect the lives of the others though. pray that you'll never have to find out what it's like when somebody you really care for makes one of those wrong choices.

Sorry no chance, I do not hang out with people facing that ever so tough decision as to whether or not they should shoot heroin or not.

I also am not raising anyone like that.

we all try to do everything that can possibly be done to protect ourselves and those we care for from this crap, dude. unfortunately that's simply not enough sometimes. but then again - i'd rather you never have to find this out for yourself, it's certanly much better to remain an ignorant simpleton.

mcgid1 wrote:

As far as the infrastructure and export thing goes, I'm just gonna throw this out there.

Afghanistan is a land-locked country that shares borders with Iran to the west, Pakistan (more specifically the lawless region of Pakistan) and a small sliver of western China to the east, and a bunch of -stans to the north.  Who, exactly, are they going to export to?  The lack of a coastline prevents cost effective shipping globally (airfreight would cost too much to be reasonable).  Pretty much the only way to get anything out of Afghanistan would be over land, which relies as much on your neighbor's infrastructure as it does on your own if you expect to export anything legal in significant quantities.

Silk road.

Well only thing worth trading gets passed through =/

Dilbert_X wrote:

FEOS wrote:

You act as if we're not building up their infrastructure now (and haven't been doing so for the past eight years).

Apparently, we are buying up the heroin...on the open market.

Haven't seen any reports on the infrastructure work.

We're letting the Taliban take their cut, which is financing their operations.

I bet it would be effective all round to just let the Afghans grow it and buy it all.

You're basing this on what? One news article?

Just because you haven't seen news reports on the infrastructure work doesn't mean it isn't happening. How much "good news" gets reported on a regular basis? Virtually none. That means you have to educate yourself instead of expecting to be spoon-fed what you need to know (vice what the media wants you to know) about topics, Dilbert.

Dilbert_X wrote:

I haven't seen any reports, or reports of reports, anywhere.
I have seen shattered and abandoned Afghan towns, and the spike in heroin production suggesting we're not making much progress.

You haven't seen shit.

You've seen what you want to see to back up your own world view. You've taken the easy way and gone with the bad news that is reported, rather than looking for the good news that is under-reported. And because it is under-reported, you just assume that it isn't happening. And your assumption is dead wrong.

Substantial Improvements Achieved in Afghanistan's Health Sector (2007)

Just one article that popped up with a very simple search. There's gobs more.

Educate yourself. My spoon-feeding arm's tired.

lowing wrote:

You are wrong, "if we all try to do everything that we can possibly do to protect ourselves from this crap" then WE ALL would not be drug abusers. PERIOD.

orly? addiction clinics are full of people who had the same confidence in themselves, dude. why's that?

there are also people who most certainly take good care of themselves and their families and run narcotics industry at the same time, aiming to sell drugs to your kids - have you done "everything you can possibly do" about that? are you sure that's enough?

what about those who invade other nations under the pretence of "fighting terrorism" and "sperading democracy" - i bet you most of them too do everything they can to protect themselves from drugs and all, but, aparrently, don't give a flying fuck about how their actions affects others. what can i, or my family of "losers", or my "dumb fuck" friends possbly do about that?

lowing wrote:

So just because I am SMART ENOUGH to not do drugs, does not make me the one who is an "IGNORANT SIMPLETON". In fact, since I am not the loser, piece of dog shit, dumb fuck who is caught up in drugs, I contend that it is you, your friends, or family that appear to be into drugs that might be the ignorant simple minded fool.

Just a thought, lay blame where it goes for once.

ah... i see. i must have hit a sensitive spot, let me apologize for that. i'll leave you to live your life of blissfull ignorance now. have a nice day.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Shahter wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Who's to blame? The afghani farmers or the people injecting heroin into their bodies? Blaming the afghanis for providing the drugs is stupid. If there wasn't a demand for it, there would be no supply. No one is putting a gun to the heads of young Russians and telling them to shoot up or die. Free will holmes.

this has been debated to no end. i could post a thousand arguments for you here on how this whole shit works, how easily that demand for drugs is created and what kind of "free will" a 12-years old really has, but i'm sure it'll all be ignored again.
anyway, the problem is there and there are ways to deal with it. one is to do something about those who grow the shit, but it's out of russia's hands as long as usa terror fighters and liberators are there and consider this way to be "counterproductive" to whatever they are trying to achieve. capiche?

Shrug, it all comes down to convincing the people that shooting heroin into their arm is a bad thing. Even if the poppy fields in Afghanistan were burned there is still synthesized heroin that could hit the streets. Hell, people here in America cook up fucking cough syrup and turn it into drugs. If people want to get high, they will. It really doesn't matter what the drug is because even if it were eliminated it would just be replaced.

Work internally to destroy the drug culture... or just conduct a massive social darwinist experiment and let them all kill themselves. Once their friends start dying you wouldn't believe how fast the rest all rush to clean themselves up.

I don't think you understand.  If someone dies from an overdose, all the addicts will be looking for the heroine he got because they just want to get higher.  Also, it would be a lot better for their society to be based off of a less potent drug than heroine which has the ability to totally take over a culture by its sheer addictive power.

Pretty much its Russia's fault for letting their own drug problem get so out of hand, and the US fault for releasing taliban control over the fields.  Believe it or not the Taliban banned the growth of it.  The farmers would be executed if found growing the plant, now they face their plants being burnt down at worst.

Shahter wrote:

lowing wrote:

You are wrong, "if we all try to do everything that we can possibly do to protect ourselves from this crap" then WE ALL would not be drug abusers. PERIOD.

orly? addiction clinics are full of people who had the same confidence in themselves, dude. why's that?

there are also people who most certainly take good care of themselves and their families and run narcotics industry at the same time, aiming to sell drugs to your kids - have you done "everything you can possibly do" about that? are you sure that's enough?

what about those who invade other nations under the pretence of "fighting terrorism" and "sperading democracy" - i bet you most of them too do everything they can to protect themselves from drugs and all, but, aparrently, don't give a flying fuck about how their actions affects others. what can i, or my family of "losers", or my "dumb fuck" friends possbly do about that?

lowing wrote:

So just because I am SMART ENOUGH to not do drugs, does not make me the one who is an "IGNORANT SIMPLETON". In fact, since I am not the loser, piece of dog shit, dumb fuck who is caught up in drugs, I contend that it is you, your friends, or family that appear to be into drugs that might be the ignorant simple minded fool.

Just a thought, lay blame where it goes for once.

ah... i see. i must have hit a sensitive spot, let me apologize for that. i'll leave you to live your life of blissfull ignorance now. have a nice day.

Addiction clinics are full of people who made a conscience choice to shoot heroin, snort coke, or drop acid over NOT doing so. There are also a whole society full of people who made the choice NOT to do drugs. So tell me why those that chose to do drugs are not the dumb fucks.


The drug pushers run successful businesses selling to the obvious dumb fucks that you hold so close to your heart. They are no danger to me or my family. and yes, I am sure about that. Why do you ask? Because I am not raising dumb fucks.


Not really sure, how you can tie this discussion about drug addicts and their dumb fuck decisions in life to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will just assume you were stoned when you tried that analogy. As far as what you, or your family of "losers", or your "dumb fuck" friends possibly do about anything, I will assume nothing, since apparently they are too dumb fuck to make proper decisions for their own lives, I am not gunna count on them much for any real contribution to the rest of the world. Thanks anyway.


Nope, you have not hit a sensitive spot, but feel free to leave me in my blissful life. As far as the ignorance goes, I am not the one battling drug addiction remember?

Last edited by lowing (2009-12-14 13:50:45)