Comment on Close enough
stickyprimer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Interesting… I never thought about this but the Middle East are insane about drugs. Cut off your hand type penalties. And maybe this is because they are religious. Or maybe it’s because the oil trafficking cartels (aka their governments) don’t want the competition of drug trafficking cartels. It’s the same reason that some dictators have banned religion: they don’t want any other institutions with power around that they don’t control.
AppleTea@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Afghanistan used to be a major heroin producer. So much so that in the 90s, the Taliban gained a lot of local goodwill and support by driving out the poppy plantations and replacing them with wheat. When the US invaded, a lot of those former drug lords became officials in the occupational government, and heroin production skyrocketed again.
The reductive take was that we invaded for oil. But we didn’t, it was so we could move crazy amounts of narcotics through Fort Bragg.
daannii@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I do believe that most of the u.s legal opiates (like those for opiate medicines) come from the middle east.
Mostly Israel and Iran, Turkey.
researchandmarkets.com/…/middle-east-opioids-mark…