I have an analogy

Hitler is to Mein Kampf as Michelle Malkin is to the John Doe Manifesto. I am not sure what is the most disturbing aspect of her unhinged rant. Could it be her promise to prevent American schoolchildren from being indoctrinated into Sharia law? Or was it her promise to teach all Americans to fear brown people as much as she does? I really can't decide. With heavy doses of blatant racism and her promise to turn America into 1984, with children acting as junior spies against their parents and internment camps for non-conformists, the woman practically parodies herself. How could Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart make that seem any worse?

This kind of hateful rhetoric should no longer surprise me. But I am rather shocked and disturbed by how much support she gets. Why are so many people buying it? Go and read the commenters. They really believe that "Democrats" are the biggest threat to national security and are inviting terrorists to blow up America! What the hell is wrong with people? *cough* Soviet Union, East Germany, Berlin Wall *cough*

Saskboy has more.

Afghan heroin's surge poses danger in U.S.

Supplies of highly potent Afghan heroin in the United States are growing so fast that the pure white powder is rapidly overtaking lower-quality Mexican heroin, prompting fears of increased addiction and overdoses.

Heroin-related deaths in Los Angeles County soared from 137 in 2002 to 239 in 2005, a jump of nearly 75% in three years, a period when other factors contributing to overdose deaths remained unchanged, experts said. The jump in deaths was especially prevalent among users older than 40, who lack the resilience to recover from an overdose of unexpectedly strong heroin, according to a study by the county's Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology.

"The rise of heroin from Afghanistan is our biggest rising threat in the fight against narcotics," said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. "We are seeing more seizures and more overdoses."

According to a Drug Enforcement Administration report obtained by The Times, Afghanistan's poppy fields have become the fastest-growing source of heroin in the United States. Its share of the U.S. market doubled from 7% in 2001, the year U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban, to 14% in 2004, the latest year studied. Another DEA report, released in October, said the 14% actually could be significantly higher.

Poppy production in Afghanistan jumped significantly after the 2001 U.S. invasion destabilized an already shaky economy, leading farmers to turn to the opium market to survive.

Not only is more heroin being produced from Afghan poppies coming into the United States, it is also the purest in the world, according to the DEA's National Drug Intelligence Center.

Despite the agency's own reports, a DEA spokesman denied that more heroin was reaching the United States from Afghanistan. "We are NOT seeing a nationwide spike in Afghanistan-based heroin," Garrison K. Courtney wrote in an e-mail to The Times.

I wonder if and/or when calls to legalize heroin and find legitimate medical uses for the Afghan opium crops will ever be taken seriously? This isn't exactly a new idea. Believe it or not there were was a time when heroin was a prescription drug, at least in Britain. Keeping heroin illegal has obvious negative consequences. Overdose deaths are much more likely when the dosage can not be determined.

This potent heroin, which the DEA says sells for about $90 a gram in Southern California, has prompted warnings from some officials who deal with addicts that they reduce the amount of the drug they use. Many addicts seeking the most euphoric high employ a dangerous calculation to gauge how much of the drug they can consume without overdosing. An unexpectedly powerful bundle of heroin, therefore, can be deadly.

"I tell people, 'If you're using it, only use half or three-quarters of what you used to,' because of the higher potency," said Orlando Ward, director of public affairs at the Midnight Mission on Los Angeles' skid row.

This might possibly be the most dire consequence of the thriving opium crops.

AFGHANISTAN'S share dwindled to 6% for much of the 1990s, as competition from Southeast Asia and Colombia grew. Meanwhile, the Taliban was cracking down as it gained territory, virtually eliminating poppy production after taking over the country.

Once the fundamentalist Islamic government was overthrown in 2001, Afghans turned once again to the poppy trade to survive in one of the poorest countries in the world.

A report released Nov. 28 by the World Bank said U.S. and European efforts to end Afghanistan's $2.3-billion opium business were failing.

The production of opium used to produce heroin reached its highest level ever in Afghanistan this year. It accounted for more than one-third of Afghanistan's gross domestic product and 90% of the world's supply of illicit opium, mainly going to Asia and Europe, according to the report.

The poppy crop now drives the economy in some regions of the embattled nation, helping to fund a Taliban resurgence.

via Digby

Another Reason to Hate the War in Iraq

I certainly don't want to turn this into Warblog any more than I want to turn this into Weed Porn blog. Nobody wants to listen to another "liberal" write about why war is bad. But I found the following news story very interesting.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan farmers now planting opium poppies will probably reap a harvest comparable to this year's record crop, in part because insurgents are preventing effective counternarcotics work, officials said yesterday.

Planting is under way in southern regions responsible for the bulk of the estimated 6,100 tons of Afghan opium produced in the 2005-6 growing season.

Drug production has skyrocketed since a U.S.-led offensive toppled the Taliban regime five years ago for giving refuge to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda camps. Last spring's poppy harvest accounted for 92 percent of the global opium supply and was enough to make 610 tons of heroin - more than the world's addicts consume in a year.

What we have here is the consequences of the War on Iraq (Brown People) on the War on Some Drugs. Apparently all the fighting and killing makes it difficult to put a dent in all that profitable and terrorist-funding opium.

Imagine being a poverty-stricken Afghani with a family to feed in a war-torn country. You know that opium is an illegal crop, yet if you plant food crops you will be unable to make ends meet. Opium is where the money is at and you know that there is no effort being made to eradicate the opium crops.

What would you do? Would you continue to do the "right" thing and grow the food crops and watch your family starve or are you going to grow the profitable opium crops?

My solution to all this lunacy would be to shut down the counter-narcotic units and the aerial spraying programs. This has done nothing but devestate the environment and harm innocent civilian by-standers. Let the Afghan farmers produce their opium and find a legal market for it. With AIDS ravaging the African continent pain medications are going to be absolutely essential. But for any poliician or group to propose this solution would take a great deal of courage that nobody seems to have.

Drug Users= Terrorists

*This is what a filthy terrorist looks like.

I’m inspired to write this post after reading this. The author acknowledges two solutions to breaking the connection between opium and terrorism: “decriminalization of drugs or much more aggressive policing”.

Equating drug users with terrorism is nothing new. The Bush administration ran ads during the Superbowl equating marijuana smokers to terrorists. Goodness! I better put down my beer bong and my crack pipe* and stop supporting the filthy terrorists. I mean, this couldn’t be a gross oversimplification of a complex issue, could it? Maybe we should run commercials equating drug prohibition with terrorism. Sales of alcohol and tobacco don’t support terrorism, since terrorists could never provide a cheaper product than the legal market.

It just goes to show how deeply the drug prohibition mentality is entrenched in society when a thread about the connection between opium and the Taliban debates the "morality” of legalizing drugs. What does morality have to do with it? I thought we were talking about taking profit away from terrorists. Are we so committed to a failed ideology that we can’t even have an honest debate about this issue without talking about morality? I don’t agree with the morality of Catholicism (or any other religion) but I sure would never suggest making the practice of worshipping illegal.

If you really believe that the law has any impact on the habits of drug users, you are sorely mistaken. It’s not as though there are thousands of people waiting for the day when they can start a dangerous drug addiction as soon as they get government permission. Rates of drug use seem unaffected by our laws.

Instead of wasting more money on a failed policy we need to talk seriously about hitting terrorists where it really hurts – in the pocket book. “Much more aggressive policing” is just more of the same failed and wasteful policy that has had no impact on use rates. Unfortunately, none of the federal political parties in this country has had the courage to tackle this divisive and controversial issue.

Salon ran an excellent piece about the Superbowl ads. Read it here. They assert (quite convincingly) that all consumers of gasoline are aiding and abetting terrorism. Salon rules!

* I stole that bit from Futurama. I watch entirely too much television.