It really exploded AFTER we took over Afghanistan. Opium production has gone up every year since. The worldwide illicit drug trade is a 320 billion a year business. Intelligence agencies and banks get a healthy share of that. Governments get a doped up populace.
That’s why we have a dope epidemic.
Who benefits?
At least there are recent reports of us blowing up their labs.
So long we do not produce and import drugs, we lose. We could export them in fact and make them lose. Tobacco farmers do not smoke because they have jobs and a future... Same with producing drugs and exporting them, is all.
Stop Talking Sense!
“Who benefits?”
How about the Deep State two ways:
1. Financially
2. A large % of the population becomes dependent on the drug and needs governmental financial help to exist. Then they are controlled fairly easily by the various Deep
States!
Afghanistan may explain the supply side of the equation, but our docs and pharmaceutical industry here had to create a demand side. Unlike drugs from the 60s and 70s, these are impacting many more “normal” people who were unfortunate enough to get hooked on legal painkillers - and when they were no longer available or affordable they simply turned to heroin.