Russia and the U.S. Exchanged Data on the Heroin Mafia
Moscow and Washington have begun to cooperate in identifying drug traffickers in Afghanistan. But the campaign against these criminals could stall due to the refusal of the American commanders to eliminate the cultivation of opium. The generals are afraid of embittering the peasants to whom growing opium brings revenues.
Russia and the U.S. have begun to exchange information about Afghan organizations and citizens who are engaged in drug production and trafficking, as reported by the Director of Russia’s Federal Service for the Control of Narcotics (FSKN), Viktor Ivanov.
According to RIA Novosti, Moscow has handed over to the Americans the whereabouts of over 10 Afghan citizens who are participating in criminal activities. This is approximately the same amount of data the Americans have handed over to Russian representatives. According to Ivanov, Russia and the U.S. have begun to cooperate effectively.
The unification of these two powers can only be welcomed. Over one million people have been killed and 16 million injured, either mentally or physically, as a result of Afghan drugs in recent years. The calamities from these drugs have even spread to Russia. Over 90 percent of drug addicts in our country use various types of poison manufactured from opium delivered from Afghanistan. Up to 30,000 Russians die annually from illness connected to heroin.
However, as the New York Times reports, U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan have ceased attempts to eliminate drugs. The commander of U.S. and NATO troops, Stanley McChrystal, and his staff maintain that opium is the main source of income for peasants in many provinces of Afghanistan. And if so, “We must not deprive these Afghans, who we are attempting to win over to our side, of their earnings,” says Jeffrey Eggers, a member of the general’s Strategic Advisory Group.*
This new directive is being applied in the suburbs around the city of Marjah, in the Helmand province, which recently came under the control of the counter-terrorism coalition. Sixty to 70 percent of farmers around Marjah are engaged in growing opium. The U.S. Marines, who often move through the opium fields, are now being ordered to leave them intact.
A number of Afghan officers oppose these tactics of the occupying forces. Referring to the fact that the constitution forbids the growth of opium, they want to plow the opium fields in Helmand province.
“How is it possible to allow legitimate armed forces to be situated alongside opium fields, which are turned into poison, killing people all over the world?” asks Zalmai Afzali, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Counter-Narcotics.
*Editor’s note: Quote could not be verified.
[excerpt] “Over one million people have been killed and 16 million injured, either mentally or physically, as a result of Afghan drugs in recent years. The calamities from these drugs have even spread to Russia. Over 90 percent of drug addicts in our country use various types of poison manufactured from opium delivered from Afghanistan. Up to 30,000 Russians die annually from illness connected to heroin.”
These stats are bald-faced lies! (told by the original author). The USA is generally acknowledged to have the worst problem with illicit narcotiocs of any developed nation, and it only sees 17,000 TOTAL deaths from ALL illicit drugs (cocaine, heroin, methedrine, excstatsy, etc,)in 2000.
More died from legal drugs than they did from heroin despite the dirty and dangerous circumstances that prohibition policies force addicts into using *despite* the fact that they are using the *very same drugs* being given to Grandma at the local hospital via IV tube or regular injection. Heroin, morphine, dilaudid, methadone, etc. are ALL opioids, and ALL have the same general effect on a person as the Demerol or morphine given at the hospital or by their GP physician for pain. Claiming that the same drug becomes a poison simply because it was sold or manufactured illegally is irrational.
The misconception is promoted however by scare-mongering conservative politicos and police-prison gaurd union officials who have long seen the utility of using a “drug menace” for job security.
The incredible financial cost and social damage inflicted on society in the US by their efforts beggars any modicum of human decency. By creating the very same gang problems and violence this guy here is now whining about with opiods, we went through over alcohol already —- which is far more deadly. Yet the problems associated with that black-mareket soon saw the cooler headed folks move to repeal that misguided effort. But will they ever learn about that same effect now happening with these other drugs? Not if they’re conservatives…who don’t concern themselves with facts….only their gut feelings (hence the term “reactionaries” for them).
1.(2000) “The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435,000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85,000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75,000), toxic agents (55,000), motor vehicle crashes (43,000), incidents involving firearms (29,000), sexual behaviors (20,000), and illicit use of all drugs (17,000).”
http://proxy.baremetal.com/csdp.org/research/1238.pdf