I was reading through some articles about the increase of opium production in Afghanistan and came across the following graph from Wikipedia.
Opium Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan (in Hectors)
This data was published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
It is interesting to note that during the period when Taliban was gaining power, the opium production actually showed a downward trend to a point where in 2001 it was reduced to its a minimum record since 1994.
Many argue that this containment of opium production under the Taliban regime was not favorable to the American drug corporations, which consequently become one of the big factors in the invasion of Afghanistan and the decision to overthrow the Taliban regime.
After which, the production of opium surely picked up again and kept rising up beyond previous records.
The fact that Pharmaceutical business is the second most profit making industry after oil is no secret and the American government benefited largely from this increased opium production.
Following is a list of Medical drugs produced from Opium:
| Morphine | 45.8% |
| Codeine | 42.5% |
| Dihydrocodeine | 5.4% |
| Pholcodine | 1.9% |
| Hydrocodone | 1.5% |
| Thebaine | 1.4% |
| Oxycodone | 0.9% |
| Ethylmorphine | 0.6% |
When considering the number of people around the world that use Acetaminophen daily, a pain killer that has Codeine as its main ingredient, the amount cash that is generated from having cheap opium at hand is astronomical.
Opium (cheap opium) creates huge profit margins for pharmaceutical companies.
By controlling the region and increasing the production of this plant, similar to oil, the American government kept its price reduced and well favorable, with no regards to regional and global effects of such massive opium surplus.
Sure the American companies have made billions of dollars, but at the cost of many Afghani, Iranian, Pakistani young men and women killed if not others around the world, many falling into the traps of addiction.
An addiction which devastates not only a single person, but many families, their offspring and eventually destroys the foundation for a functional society.
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