[killjoy]

They need to get in there with crop substitutions. One of the reasons these plants are so easy to grow is they don't require irrigation. They actually require almost no maintenance at all to grow. There has been a lot of work, mostly done in India, on non-narcotic species that can be grown. These can still be used for other purposes and allow the locals to still be productive but can not be used for producing opium/heroin.

Simply eradicating the plants is not a solution.

[tjg]

I question whether any plan to eradicate cultivation will work. The incentive to grow a cash crop that far exceeds any other in terms of profit margin is almost impossible to overcome.

As long as there is high demand for the product, the supply will come from somewhere.

[lotusblos]

Take the profit out of it and they won't grow it. You can't win the drug war by making drugs illegal. Prohibition, like socialism, just doesn't work. Time to put our thinking caps on. Denial is not a river in Egypt.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Agreed. People in the US (and particularly trendy Hollywood and rock stars who feel obligated to use heroin) need to understand that there is a supply side and a demand side. I have seen a few, but clearly not enough of the PSA's that shove the link between drug use and funding of terrorism right in the face of the casual drug user. The same people who agitate n the side of relaxing drug penalties in the US are the ones insinuating that our government has something to do with narcoterrorism elsewhere - when more than any thing else it is their discretionary choice to buy these drugs that is causing enormous dislocations elsewhere in the world.

[airborne]

They need to get in there with crop substitutions.

I seem to recall hearing about roses being tried as a substitute crop. Regardless of what crop is used as a substitute, it won't happen overnight.