There is no civilised solution to this problem.
If, and its a big if, you manage to get the farmers to change to
another crop, the price the opium trader will pay will top what the
farmer can get for his legitimate crop.

For years and years there have been unsuccessful efforts to get change.
It is a milk cow for the Taliban, so why much about.
Just spray the lot from the air.
Do it every year until they get the message.

I once suggested introducing a genetically modified variety into the
fields that would spread amongst the crop, that would not have the narcotic.
However I was informed that because of the normal propergation method it would not work.

because of the normal propergation method it would not work.
Posted by Bazz

Have you more info or site I could read?
fluff4

The civilised solution to this problem is to treat opium like tobacco and grapes grown for alcohol. Which is pretty much what the author concludes in his final sentence.

The civilised solution to this problem is to treat opium like nicotine and alcohol. Which is pretty much what the author concludes in his final sentence.

Fluff4

No, there is no web page on that, it was correspondence with an
Australian scientific plant research organisation.

Re legalisation;
We remove all sorts of dangerous substances from the market.
As soon as something is suspected of doing harm they rush around the
shops and remove it from the shelves.
So what is different with herion and tobacco ?

I don't see why "we" should be associated with permitting harm to be
done to members of the public.

If it creats a criminal market then so be it. If they were not in
that criminal market they would be in another criminal market.
Both herion and tobacco do very great harm and cause agonising death.
How can any government allow it to be sold.
Cut it off at source and end of problem.
There has been too much political correctness in this.
To hell with the growers, they know what they are doing.
Let them wear problems for a change.

Bazz, since the 1940's, nicotine addiction and usage has been reduced by about a factor of three, without any need to criminalise it - just sensible regulation and informational awareness. In the same period, use (and abuse) of other recrational drugs has not changed at all. Banning drugs simply has not worked. We already knew this, from the disastrous Prohibition experiment in the U.S. Why anyone thought that it would be different for opium-derived drugs, I don't know, but we have the results: it failed. Let's try something that *does* work.

Banning harmful substances is generally only effective when there's no strong desire from consumers to use the substance, and when there are good substitutes available.