There has been a dangerous, but very interesting shell game going on in the opuium fields of that is primarily dictated by the policies of the and carried out by the United States Marines. 

In Afghanistan, the Marines of Bravo Company’s 1st Platoon sleep beside a grove of poppies in the world’s largest opium poppy-growing region surrounded by green fields of the illegal plants that produce the main ingredient of heroin.

Now, even though these drugs are illegal and the U.S. spends billions of dollars in the war against drugs, the Marines do not destroy the plants. In fact, they are reassuring villagers that the poppies won’t be touched leaving many Marines in the field scratching their heads over the situation.

The Taliban, whose fighters are exchanging daily fire with the Marines in Garmser, an Afghani province, derives up to $100 million a year from the poppy harvest by taxing farmers and charging safe passage fees — money that will buy weapons for use against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops.

Just before the United States invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim group that has controlled much of Afghanistan from 1995 until U.S. military intervention in 2001, outlawed the production and use of opium. This had positive rippling effect on the world’s drug trade including the slowing of heroin imports to the United States.

Supposedly a good thing….right?

Well here comes the Bush Crime Family, using their now perfected "pretzel logic" to save the world from itself and eradicate the evil Al Qaeda. So we, (the U.S. military) invade Afghaistan thereby putting an end to the reign of the Taliban.

And what happens? That’s right! The Afghanis begin producing opium in unprecedented quantities raising exportation to records levels which lowers the price of heroin in the U.S. so that every "boy and girl can afford it using their lunch or allowance money!

An expert on Afghanistan’s drug trade, Barnett Rubin, complained that the Marines are being put in such a situation by a "one-dimensional" military policy that fails to integrate political and economic considerations into long-range planning."

DID YOU CATCH THAT? No wonder things are so screwed up with our relationships with the rest of the world!

We spend billions to fight a war against drugs with the primary focus on the poor schmucks from the recreational user to the more serious full-time addicts while our Marines sleep beside groves of poppies.