Opium Wars
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Despite the United States best efforts in the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror", Islamic fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan still rake in half a billion dollars a year in the opium trade. Gretchen Peters has covered Pakistan and Afghanistan for over a decade. Her book is called Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Event: Gretchen Peters will be reading and signing books
Monday, May 18, at 7:00 pm
Half King
505 West 23rd Street, at Tenth Avenue
Guests:
Gretchen Peters
About The Leonard Lopate Show
Host Leonard Lopate lets you in on the best conversations with writers, actors, ex-presidents, dancers, scientists, comedians, historians, grammarians, curators, filmmakers, and do-it-yourself experts.
Hosted by Leonard Lopate
Sign up for the Book Club e-newsletter.
Features
- 2010 Tony Award Winners
- 25 Years of Lopate
- AIDS: Then & Now
- Backstory
- Guest Hosts
- Guest Picks
- How Did Politics in America Get So Weird?
- Please Explain
- Summer Stuff
- The Big Picture
- The Gurus of How-To
- The Leonard Lopate Show Book Club
- The Lodown
- The Word Maven: Patricia T. O'Conner
- Tributes
- Underappreciated
- Underreported
- Web Extras
Show Archive
Show Archive
Comments [7]
Neither is going away as long as there are certain americans that are profiting.
Actually your guest is wrong, there is already legal production of opium in Afghanistan and has been for years.
oil pays for terror when are we going to get rid of oil.
What about the new plan that was announced recently to go after the Taliban side of the opium trade?
Why is legal growing of opium never mentioned? All morphine and codeine is made from opium. The United Nations allows legal production of opium in Afghanistan, Turkey and I believe a third country to supply this legal market for pharmaceutical production. It amounts to hundreds of tons a year.
Is there anything the Afghan gov't., or even the US gov't., could do to support the growing of substitute crops by farmers currently opium poppies? Possibly on the model of Sarah Chayes' Arghand but on a much larger scale?
I have heard the idea of cultivating poppies for prescription drug use. This would allow Afghanis to make money legally from poppy farming. Does your guest know if this is a viable option? It appears to make a lot of sense.
Yhank you.
Gabrielle
Brooklyn
Leave a Comment
Register for your own account so you can vote on comments, save your favorites, and more. Learn more.
Please stay on topic, be civil, and be brief.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. Names are displayed with all comments. We reserve the right to edit any comments posted on this site. Please read the Comment Guidelines before posting. By leaving a comment, you agree to New York Public Radio's Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use.