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 rexmundi
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 Canada's Opium Policy
#7523408 - 10/16/07 02:13 PM (10 months, 15 days ago) |
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Hey everyone, I'm new at posting, but a longtime lurker, and I'd like some input.
I'm doing a paper for my policy analysis class in which I am predictably required to choose a policy issue (Canadian) and analyze it. Given that I spend my online time perusing this forum and others like it, I am choosing to do a drug policy. Specifically Opioids, starting with prohibition, medicinal issues, abuse, safe-injection clinics, and the war in Afghanistan.
I've done some preliminary poking around (only had the idea last night) and it seems like sources are relatively accessible. What I am wondering is if anyone has done similar research or is knowledgeable about this subject. Send any info or thoughts you might have this way.
Thanks.
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kriminalelement
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 Re: Canada's Opium Policy [Re: rexmundi]
#7587766 - 11/02/07 01:02 PM (9 months, 29 days ago) |
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The war in Afghanistan is an excellent example of why opiates and other drugs should be made legal. Making highly desirable substances illegal opens a huge black market. The Taliban has received all of their funding from the sale of opium grown in Afghanistan. Every other major criminal organization in the world is involved in the sale of drugs and narcotics specifically. If opium were legalized in just a few countries, it would pull the rug out from under criminal and terrorist conglomerates.
Also, opium is used by drug manufacturers for painkillers. From what I understand, the opium farmers themselves receive an average of $300 for their huge fields of opium. The pharmaceutical companies need to offer them a fair price and then swoop in and monopolize the purchase of opium in afghanistan, but won't because the opium is not grown in a controlled environment. Maybe you could talk about some of the pharmaceutical companies dropping the ball on this one. Opium is a perfectly legal substance when used medically, and there is a GIANT market for it internationally..... Is something so totally broken that the free market system isn't taking care of this?
Anyway, that's all I know. Anderson Cooper for CNN did a report on this a few weeks ago. Check out CNN's website for some good pictures of poppy fields in the himalayas. Almost makes me want to enlist.
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rexmundi
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yeah I read that Canada isn't cooperating with NATO (*cough* America) in regards to the opium fields. They want to destroy them but Canada doesn't want to risk alienating the farmers. Also I read that some scientist is working on a type of Opium poppy that could be harvested for codeine, but contains no morphine to be converted to heroin. There have been suggestions that Alberta should start growing them as a biomedical cash crop both to supply our own domestic needs, but also on the International market. Canada imports something like $100 billion in opiate medication a year.
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"I Love Democracy"
-Emporer Palpatine
Fuck the system.
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fantastical
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 Re: Canada's Opium Policy [Re: rexmundi]
#7674286 - 11/24/07 11:53 AM (9 months, 7 days ago) |
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Yeah opium should be legal a regulated, like all drugs. Its good that Canada is not destroying the feilds, that would ruin a possible cash crop that coule be legalized and really help their country out. The war is also retarded, we are a peace keeping nation and this new military edge we are steering towards is completely against what our nation stands for. I blame the states...their interference and influence really fucks everyone, especially when their leaders lie to the people anyways. God damn!
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fantastical
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Re: Canada's Opium Policy [Re: fantastical]
#7674315 - 11/24/07 12:03 PM (9 months, 7 days ago) |
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Regarding your paper you could research around how profitable opium feilds can be if they are legaly sold to pharmacutical companies and how benifical to afganistan's economy that would be, espiecially if the farmers made a large profit, as did the governmernt taxing it. Maybe it would be a better way to stop the human rights violations, you know by improving the living conditions for the public.
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 Minstrel
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Regarding it's legal status, it's awesome
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johnm214
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Re: Canada's Opium Policy [Re: rexmundi]
#7792077 - 12/23/07 10:46 AM (8 months, 9 days ago) |
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that strain is allready in existance, it produces thebaine (sp) which is used to produce many painkillers, such as oxy/hydro codone and morphone
Thebaine wouldn't prevent narcotrafficking. People would just switch from heroin to the drugs I've mentioned above, some of which are more potent than heroin. The conversion is more complex though, but nothing of great difficulty.
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pabloescabar
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 Re: Canada's Opium Policy [Re: johnm214]
#7836916 - 01/05/08 07:04 PM (7 months, 27 days ago) |
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Edited by pabloescabar (02/16/08 11:33 PM)
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archetype
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Re: Canada's Opium Policy [Re: johnm214]
#8029692 - 02/15/08 11:44 PM (6 months, 17 days ago) |
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Quote:
johnm214 said:
that strain is allready in existance, it produces thebaine (sp) which is used to produce many painkillers, such as oxy/hydro codone and morphone
Thebaine wouldn't prevent narcotrafficking. People would just switch from heroin to the drugs I've mentioned above, some of which are more potent than heroin. The conversion is more complex though, but nothing of great difficulty.
Are you 100% positive? I've done extensive reading on opiates since they are my most favored drug of all and from what i've read, it goes something like this:
Opium is the rawest form of opiate. What makes opium work is the morphine content found within the opium. You can extract the morphine from opium and create hydromorphone. Now from what i understand, heroin in the small amounts found within morphine is what makes morphine tick so well. So then you can go a step further and pull heroin out of the morphine. Raw heroin takes a lot of steps to procure, and that's why it's so expensive.
It makes sense because the copious amounts of poppy fields in afghanistan provide heroin for the world. I'm not saying that you're wrong, but i'm pretty sure that's what i read in all of the books. I could be mistaken myself.
For your paper, i'd note that 90% of afghanistan's farmland is dedicated to growing poppy for massive heroin-making operations that ship illegaly. It's their #1 cash crop. I've even seen pictures of kilos of raw heroin wrapped up and stamped with the name of the factory that produced it right on top. They take pride in the quality of heroin they produce. Also, i read a Time magazine article that showed how opium was so integrated into everyday life for afghani people. When their children get sick, they smoke opium as medicine. It's all very interesting.
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Yossarian22
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Re: Canada's Opium Policy [Re: archetype]
#8086859 - 02/29/08 04:23 PM (6 months, 3 days ago) |
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You're a bit mixed up, archetype. There are about a dozen opioids within opium, of which morphine is the main psychoactive one. Codeine also is found in opium, but since it's less powerful than morphine and it's usually found in lower concentrations, it contributes only a little bit to opium's psychoactivity. Thebaine is also found in opium, but it is psychoactively inert. It is similar to other powerful opioids as mentioned above, and can be made into them.
Heroin is not found in morphine; they're separate, though very similar chemicals(heroin= diacetyl morphine, and, interestingly enough, is converted to morphine when it passes through the blood-brain barrier IIRC). The opium is processed, and the morphine extracted(usually. In the case of black tar heroin, the opium itself is subjected to the same steps as the extracted morphine), and then converted through a couple of simple steps into heroin. Heroin is more potent, and historically preferred as a drug of choice. The high price is due to a) the amount of land needed to make heroin and the limited geographical area where it can be grown, and b) the danger involved in transferring or distributing the product.
Edited by Yossarian22 (02/29/08 04:24 PM)
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dill705
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Re: Canada's Opium Policy [Re: Yossarian22]
#8190839 - 03/25/08 09:45 AM (5 months, 10 days ago) |
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I read a very large chronicle of America's history with drugs writen by a P.H.D and was a profeesor of pharmacology at some big university, that said, in the early 1900's, when mophine and heroin were both readily available, that the people who had tried both usually prefered one or the other, but that it broke down almost 50/50.
I thought that was really interesting, especially as morphine rarely does much for me in the way of getting high.
Just thought I'd add my two cents.
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