Saturday, December 26, 2009
A Defense Contract for Big Pharma
A recent report by the State Department said that the current counter-narcotics operations in Afghanistan could not work in its current implementation. A number of fundamental goals have not been established as a framework, and the program also lacks officials who are on the ground and can enforce the provisions locally in Afghanistan. Given the limited success of American strategies with regard to the Drug War in countries such as Columbia and Mexico, I believe that nothing less than an intelligent, simple, and unique production-side solution will work.
Of course, I will have to revisit this theory in the near future to provide much needed details, but for now I will propose the general idea. A country's "Comparative Advantage" is a central idea in Macroeconomics; one could argue that in the 19th century America had a comparative advantage in manufacturing, a number of tropical climate countries have one in growing coffee, and many others have a comparative advantage in technology today. Given the large amounts of Afghan Opium that is processed into Heroin, and sent a large number of countries the world over (such as Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe, Thailand, and Western Europe), and despite laws making this extremely illegal, Afghan Farmers continue to thrive. They have a comparative advantage in the farming of opium.
The previous American Administration had made attempts to get farmers in Afghanistan to switch to alternative crops. This policy did not work, and even for those farmers who are not interested in producing opium, are often cajoled into growing it with little compensation. As an educated guess, I believe it is safe to assume the majority of funds raised by the Taliban come from processing the Opium into Heroin, and then trafficking it abroad. But, even if the world was free from the scourge of Heroin, Opium is necessary for the production of legal pharmaceuticals. I do not know where big pharmaceutical companies get their supplies, but I believe that we can assume that simple subsidies could be given to them in order to create new buyers for Afghan farmers' opium.
My solution proposes just that: have Big Pharma buy all the opium that would otherwise go to illicit street drugs, and use (if not all) some to create legitimate, regulated pharmaceuticals. This would be beneficial in a number of ways. Firstly, the Taliban would no longer have the supplies necessary to carry on in the drug trade. Secondly, assuming all afghan opium is simply destroyed and not used, the cost of buying it all would be substantially less than the cost of traditional counter-narcotics operations by the Military, Police, and organizations such as the DEA. Lastly, these latter organizations could provide the security that would be necessary to get large pharmaceutical companies into such a hostile environment.
If the success of our military operations depend on winning this Afghan Counter-Narcotics effort, America must think outside the box. For a country built on innovative and entrepreneurial ideas, then we should harness that spirit, utilize market forces, and deal a serious blow to the finances of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Of course, I will have to revisit this theory in the near future to provide much needed details, but for now I will propose the general idea. A country's "Comparative Advantage" is a central idea in Macroeconomics; one could argue that in the 19th century America had a comparative advantage in manufacturing, a number of tropical climate countries have one in growing coffee, and many others have a comparative advantage in technology today. Given the large amounts of Afghan Opium that is processed into Heroin, and sent a large number of countries the world over (such as Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe, Thailand, and Western Europe), and despite laws making this extremely illegal, Afghan Farmers continue to thrive. They have a comparative advantage in the farming of opium.
The previous American Administration had made attempts to get farmers in Afghanistan to switch to alternative crops. This policy did not work, and even for those farmers who are not interested in producing opium, are often cajoled into growing it with little compensation. As an educated guess, I believe it is safe to assume the majority of funds raised by the Taliban come from processing the Opium into Heroin, and then trafficking it abroad. But, even if the world was free from the scourge of Heroin, Opium is necessary for the production of legal pharmaceuticals. I do not know where big pharmaceutical companies get their supplies, but I believe that we can assume that simple subsidies could be given to them in order to create new buyers for Afghan farmers' opium.
My solution proposes just that: have Big Pharma buy all the opium that would otherwise go to illicit street drugs, and use (if not all) some to create legitimate, regulated pharmaceuticals. This would be beneficial in a number of ways. Firstly, the Taliban would no longer have the supplies necessary to carry on in the drug trade. Secondly, assuming all afghan opium is simply destroyed and not used, the cost of buying it all would be substantially less than the cost of traditional counter-narcotics operations by the Military, Police, and organizations such as the DEA. Lastly, these latter organizations could provide the security that would be necessary to get large pharmaceutical companies into such a hostile environment.
If the success of our military operations depend on winning this Afghan Counter-Narcotics effort, America must think outside the box. For a country built on innovative and entrepreneurial ideas, then we should harness that spirit, utilize market forces, and deal a serious blow to the finances of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
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