The Afghan Crop Currency from Newsy

Newsy.com, a news startup has asked me post one of their videos on the fight against opium and marijuana in Afghanistan.

Their description of their work:
Newsy.com videos analyze news coverage of important issues from multiple sources. Its unique method of presenting how different media outlets are covering a story gives context to complex policy issues.

I've watched a ton of the videos and they are really interestingly put together. I'd encourage those of you with interests beyond reefer to go to their site and check out the other videos. Since I just care about weed (at least on the this blog), I'll just show this great video:




The most interesting part of this video is that it very clearly shows that capitalism, that great American past time, will be responsible for the continued growing of illicit substances (like sweet Afghan Kush). If the US makes it unprofitable for Afghan farmers (and the Taliban) to produce opium then they can just produce cannabis, a plant that's even easier to grow.

"Our fathers and grandfathers cultivated marijuana." says one Afghan. He sounds just like a 50-year-old Californian I've seen in a video I can't now find who learned to grow reefer from his grandfather who started in the 1930's. Across nations and cultures, growing weed to subvert the US government is a hobby enjoyed by many.

If we forgot about cannabis, it is also worth mentioning that the US could just skip all the bullshit and allow pharmaceutical companies, that currently buy their poppies from Turkey, to purchase from Afghan farmers.

Here is the New York Times video on "Afghanistan's New Cash Crop" that was used in the Newsy segment.

Stay High,
Reggie

p.s. this clip was sent to me by a staffer at Newsy who thought it might be good on this blog. If any other readers have material they think would be good to post, please e-mail it to me and feel free to include some of your own commentary for me to post (I'll even give you your own pseudonym if you want).