[arderkrag]

"Our reality is that we have large crops, large parcels of crops," said Cesar Aquino, the head of Paraguay's antidrug agency. "They don't dedicate themselves to cultivating marijuana because they are narcotraffickers, but because of economic necessity. Compared to the price of a traditional crop, they can make 500 percent more with this."

Fun fact: This "agency" was only founded five minutes before the story, and disbanded five minutes later, when Cesar went back to his simple peasant farming life.

[gleeaikin]

“but because of economic necessity.”

This is, of course, the same argument used for the opium production in Afghanistan. Would it make more sense to spend the drug war money on economic development in these areas?

[AuntB]

You’re probably right about that.