Heroin is made from opium which comes from poppies which grow in Afghanistan. The opium trade is illegal, so some of the people (not all) who engage in the trade give the money to terrorist organizations.
Cocaine is made from coca leaves which grow in Columbia. The cocaine trade in Latin America is run by violent thugs who do engage in domestic terrorism - not Al Qaeda types, but still very bad people.
Some of the higher up people involved in the manufacture and sale of domesticly produced illegal drugs, marijuana, LSD, ecstasy, amphetamines, are nasty violent people, especially the bikers who dominate the amphetamine trade. Surprisingly, a local high school kid was just convicted of first degree murder for hiring another kid to kill a rival kid in the local marijuana trade. The jury gave him a death sentence. Blond, blue eyed kid, his dad is retired federal security, worked for Carter and Reagan. Newspaper said they were grossing hundreds of thousands of dollars, around a million. So much for marijuana dealers being peaceful types.
I am curious as to why opium is mostly illegal but the drug companies make synthetic opiates. I take Tylenol #3 (with codeine) when my rheumatoid arthritis gets too painful, and I much prefer it to synthetic opiates.
Legalizing it and regulating it seems like a good idea to me - give the poppy farmers a way to support their families legally. Am I being paranoid for wondering whether the drug companies make more money on the synthetic stuff?
My thoughts on this were stimulated by watching the British version of Traffic - it is called Traffik, and it's probably in your video store for rental. |
