The Afghanistan Poppy.

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BBC news this morning has a story on how the opium crop from Afghanistan is expected to be huge this year. This reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend the other day.

He said that all the UN has to do to stop the war in Afghanistan is to legalise their poppy crop for use in the world pharmacutical markets. Once the money starts rolling in the warlords will lose or willingly give up their power. It seems that the UK is trying to head down this path.

Here's a link to a story on the subject;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6287975.stm

The big problem is that the US has a large protected poppy industry that would obviously be in trouble if this came about.

It seems to me to be slightly distasteful that Western powers are hell bent on destroying the Afghan poppy crop when their own countries cultivate poppies for medicinal purposes. And destroying the Afghan farmers crops when they are very poor is only going to push them over towards the Taliban.

Thoughts? Am I totally off base here?