Let a Thousand Licensed Poppies Bloom offers a solution that kills two birds with one stone:
The United Nations estimated that Afghanistan produced more than 4,200 tons of opium last year; cultivation jumped to 323,701 acres from 197,680 acres in 2003. Ten percent of the Afghan population is believed to be involved in the trade, which supplies nearly 90 percent of the world’s illegal heroin. Clearly, this drug war is not being won.The global pain crisis is just as daunting. The World Health Organization has said that opioids are ‘absolutely necessary’ for treating severe pain. But half the world’s countries use them only rarely if at all even for the dying, and even though research shows that addiction is exceedingly uncommon among pain patients without a history of it.
Here in the United States, only half of all dying patients receive adequate relief, and those suffering from chronic non-cancer pain are even more likely to be undermedicated. Senlis estimates that meeting the global need for pain medications would require 10,000 tons of opium a year — more than twice Afghanistan’s current production.