Poppies for Peace, Poverty Alleviation and Pain Relief
Dear Senators Warren and Markey,
I am writing to urge you and your colleagues in the Senate to dramatically rethink our approach to resolving insecurity and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Please consider developing a program that might be named — Poppies for Peace, Poverty Alleviation and Pain Relief.
I believe that a well regulated, legal trade in opium poppies would substantially increase the income security and wellbeing of the poorest rural families in Afghanistan, would deny the Taliban its primary source of financing, would reduce insecurity associated with the illegal drug trade, and would provide an affordable supply of pain-killers desperately needed by developing country hospitals.
While the United States is suffering an opioid crisis fueled, in part, by over prescription of pain killers, over 5.5 billion people in developing countries, according to the WHO, continue to lack affordable access to opiates to relieve the pain of traumatic injury, surgery and complications from child birth.
Though the supply of illegal opioids is increasing in the United States, the legal supply of affordable pain-killers for developing country hospitals is not.
Australia farmers current grow opium poppies in a strictly regulated market and now supply over 50% of the raw material used by pharmaceutical companies to make legal opiates.
Today in Afghanistan poor farmers across much of this arid country are growing poppies because they are relatively drought resistant, thrive on poor soils with little or no fertilizer, and can be sold at a much higher price than crops like wheat. Though growing poppies and selling opium makes agricultural and economic sense for impoverished families with very few income generating opportunities it is illegal and their buyers are the Taliban.
What if the future was different. Imagine that Afghan farmers could legally grow opium poppies and sell their crop to regulated buyers who pay 10–15% above the price paid by the Taliban. The poppies would then be sold to existing registered pharmaceutical companies in India who would create high quality and affordable opiate pain killers for developing country health services. Imagine that a family philanthropy like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation created a revolving Poppies for Peace fund, that provided the initial capital to buy poppies from Afghan farmers and would be recapitalized from a portion of the profits generated by the traders and the pharmaceutical companies. The US government could provide assistance to the Afghan army or police to provide security during the sale and transportation of the poppy crop each year.
This approach though clearly a challenge to finance and implement effectively, and to sell politically, has far more likelihood of alleviating poverty, decreasing insecurity, and undermining the finances of the Taliban, than the approaches being proposed currently. It is hard to imagine persuading poor farmers to switch from growing poppies that have a wholesale price of $300–3000 per kilogram, to growing wheat that sells for between $0.45 and $1.26 per kilogram.
This may be an unconventional idea but I do hope that you will consider it.
Sincerely,
Dr. David S. Wilkie
