“None of the opium produced in Afghanistan is used in the legal market.
You might be surprised. The crackdown on poppies is slow to influence those that need the drugs.
https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/drug_of_abuse.pdf
Page 46 of the report:
“A more modern method of harvesting for pharmaceutical
use is by the industrial poppy straw process of extracting alkaloids from the mature dried plant (concentrate of poppy straw). All opium and poppy straw used for pharmaceutical products are imported into the United States from legitimate sources in regulated countries.”
It was legitimate until just recently in
Afghanistan which has been supplying for years as they have the most and it is a focal on the economy.
wy69
Wrong. Afghanistan is not one of those “regulated countries.”
All of their opium is grown for the black market.