You got pain we got poppies.

[crowonapost]

Sucks to be fly over state.

I know blame Pot and states cuz for profit prison, also know as indentured slaves, I mean servants.
So 3 strikes.

[crowonapost]

Tell me how you LOVE screwing peoples lives from your keyboard.

[donttread]

End prohibition and I think you'll see some oddly functional addicts, such as we do with alcoholics and smokers.

[waltky]

Afghanis growin' more poppies...

Afghanistan's Deadly Poppy Harvest on the Rise Again
May 16, 2017 | WASHINGTON — The world's No. 1 opium-producing country, Afghanistan, is braced for an exploding poppy harvest this year, as farmers are cultivating the illicit crop in areas where it has never grown before.

“Unfortunately, the narcotics production is on the rise this year,” Javed Qaem, Afghan deputy counternarcotics minister, told international donors in Kabul Tuesday. “We are concerned that narcotics would increase this year, including in areas and provinces where previously we had zero opium production.” A new United Nations survey said Friday the total area under opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by 10 percent, from 183,000 to 201,000 hectares, compared to the previous year, leading to a significant rise in the production of illicit opium. The illicit drug is fueling insecurity, violence and insurgency among other problems to discourage private and public investment in Afghanistan, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its survey report.

An Afghan man walks through a poppy field in the Surkhroad district of Jalalabad east of Kabul, Afghanistan

Qaem's comments come amid growing international concern that the Taliban, who are fighting Afghan government troops in rural areas of the country, are fueling the poppy trade by engaging in trafficking and skimming hundreds of millions dollars in profit to fuel their militancy. Taliban insurgents, according to U.S. officials, net 60 percent of their war chest from narcotics.


Top producer of opium


Afghanistan is thought to produce an estimated 90 percent of the world's heroin. As poppy cultivation spikes, U.S. intelligence officials warn that the war-torn country is likely to see more armed violence this year. “The intelligence community assesses that the political and security situation in Afghanistan will almost certainly deteriorate through 2018, even with a modest increase in [the] military assistance by the United States and its partners,” U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in a Senate hearing last week.

Afghan farmers work on a poppy field in the Gereshk district of Helmand province, Afghanistan

Since 2002, the U.S. has spent more than $8.5 billion on counternarcotics in Afghanistan — about $1.5 million a day, according to the Special Investigator General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). In addition to war, opium fuels corruption and organized crime in Afghanistan, a country already ranked among the five most corrupt states in the world by Transparency International. Only 13 of the country's 34 provinces were reported poppy-free in 2016, and this number has dropped into single digits this year, Afghan officials say.


Areas of cultivation increase

[Captain Obvious]

million poppies gonna make me sleep...

[Ravens Fan]

million poppies gonna make me sleep...

But just one rose knows your name...

[waltky]

DEA warns of toxic potency of opioids risk to law enforcement officers...

Feds Look to Protect L.E. From Deadly Opioids
June 8, 2017 | WASHINGTON -- The Drug Enforcement Administration warned agencies across the U.S. this week that some chemical agents used to process illicit drugs are so toxic that even officers are put at risk.

Some chemical agents used to process illicit drugs are so toxic that even non-users and emergency responders are at risk of an overdose, the Drug Enforcement Administration warned police departments across the United States this week. In Alaska, where the governor has labeled heroin and opioid abuse an epidemic, police are heeding that advice. The new dangers arise from the influx of fentanyl into the drug market, a synthetic opioid used to "cut" heroin and other opioids. Fentanyl is 30 to 50 times stronger than heroin, and has recently popped up across Alaska, particularly in a spate of recent overdoses.

In new guidance released this week, the DEA details the dangers police officers face from coming into contact with fentanyl, be it through undercover operations, processing evidence or coming to the aid of drug users. The new hazard for law enforcement and first responders is even a danger for four-legged officers; K-9 dogs could be killed on the job from contact with fentanyl. Now Alaska's state troopers and health and human services workers are making plans to adjust trainings for officers, first responders and members of the general public who may come into contact with people who have overdosed on opioids or heroin that is laced with fentanyl. "Something that looks like heroin could be pure fentanyl -- assume the worst," said Chuck Rosenberg, acting head of the DEA.

In 28 years working in law enforcement, "this is the first time I can remember dealing with a substance that was capable of not only harming" the people who willingly inject it, but also "the public at large and first responders," said Capt. Michael Duxbury, who runs the Alaska State Troopers' statewide drug enforcement unit. It could happen to anyone -- you come across a car in a ditch and "all of the sudden they've gotten some of this powder on them," Duxbury said. Fentanyl is so dangerous that just coming into contact with a small amount could send a police officer or other emergency responder into an overdose. It has happened across the country, harrowing stories of police officers accidentally touching a bit of powder and ending up in the hospital, just barely brought back from the brink of death. "Just 2 milligrams -- the equivalent of a few grains of table salt -- an amount that can fit on the tip of your finger -- can be lethal," said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at an event in Virginia this week, announcing the DEA's new guidance for first responders.

Rosenstein described how an Ohio police officer recently "nearly died from exposure to an extremely potent opioid" he encountered during a traffic stop. "The officer took precautions by putting on gloves and a mask for personal protection," Rosenstein said. "When the officer returned to the police station, another officer pointed out that he had powder on his shirt. Instinctively, he brushed off the powder while not wearing gloves. About an hour later, he collapsed. That officer had to be treated with four doses of naloxone. Luckily, he survived and is recovering." Similar incidents have occurred in New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Maryland and elsewhere. As far as Alaska State Troopers know, there have been no overdoses in Alaska by people who unwittingly, accidentally ingested drugs, Duxbury said in an interview.

MORE

http://r2.officer.com/files/base/OFCR/image/2017/06/16x9/640x360/drugs.5939681e3d4ff.jpg[/img]
Packaged fentanyl seized in Calgary, Alberta, Canada is seen.[/center]

[waltky]

Mexican army on the Hunt For Poppies In Mexico - America's Biggest Heroin Supplier...

On The Hunt For Poppies In Mexico — America's Biggest Heroin Supplier
January 14, 2018 - The Mexican army gave NPR a firsthand look at its efforts to eradicate the flowering crop that's made into heroin.

The mountains looming ahead are legendary in Mexico. "Whether it was Morelos or Zapata, any figure in Mexican history who needed to escape authorities came here to the mountains of Guerrero," says Lt. Col. Juan Jose Orzua Padilla, the Mexican army spokesman in this region. Today, it's not revolutionaries skulking through this formidable southern section of the Sierra Madre mountains — it's heroin traffickers. Mexico's southwestern Guerrero state is now the top source of heroin for the American drug epidemic, which resulted in more than 64,000 overdose deaths in 2016, mostly from heroin or other opioids. The Drug Enforcement Administration says 93 percent of heroin analyzed by the agency in 2015 came from Mexico, more than double the amount from five years before. The Mexican army gave NPR reporters a firsthand look at its efforts to eradicate poppy — the flowering plant that's a raw material for making heroin.

Guerrero, Mexico is located in the southwest region of Mexico.

Mexico has the third largest area under poppy cultivation in the world, after Afghanistan and Myanmar, according to a 2017 United Nations report based on estimates from 2015. By 2016, Mexican poppy cultivation had potentially grown more than three times the national amount estimated in 2013, according to the DEA. "You get up into the mountains and look around the hillsides and there are poppy fields everywhere," says Orzua from an army pickup rumbling over winding dirt roads. Guerrero is a heroin hub not only because its mountains are inaccessible. But also, Orzua explains that the high elevations catching warm, humid air from the Pacific coast are ideal for growing high-quality poppy. The poppy plants — which bloom beautiful, deep-red flowers just before harvest — have changed with agricultural enhancements over the last few years, says Orzua.They are now shorter and each plant can carry up to 10 bulbs from which opium paste is extracted. Harvest time is now as many as three times a year, instead of two previously. Poppy fields are both more productive and more potent in Guerrero. "But this is nothing to be proud of," he adds solemnly.

Soon, a few poppy fields spread before the army convoy. The red flowers stick out next to a dead corn field at one end, peach and mango trees at the other. "This is just a distraction field," Orzua says. It's meant to occupy soldiers with destroying less productive fields instead of the best producers, higher up in the mountains. But they're here and have orders to destroy all poppy they come across. A handful of troops begin reconnaissance in the area, tiptoeing among the poppies, rifles at the ready. As the heroin business has boomed, driven by strong demand in the U.S., Guerrero has consistently been one of Mexico's most violent states. The U.S. State Department listed it as a "Do Not Travel" zone in its recent travel advisory. At least 15 cartels operate in these mountains, using brutal tactics to get a slice of trade. But in these fields, the only other person in sight is a farmer up the hill tending to his mango trees. The nearest town is 30 minutes down a winding dirt road.

Isai Bello grew up in the U.S. states of Nevada and California and later lived in South Carolina. When he moved back to his family's home state of Guerrero, Mexico, joining the military was the best way to make a clean living, he says. He earns about $30 per day eradicating poppies for the army.

The poppy field has recently been tapped: The bulbs bear horizontal slices made by harvesters. Sticky white liquid seeps out of the incisions. After solidifying and oxidizing for a few hours, it's scraped off. That opium paste then gets trucked by cartels to their hidden mountain labs where it's processed into heroin. The soldiers here — all men in their late teens or early 20s, mostly locals from Guerrero — throw their automatic rifles behind their back and pull out machetes. They hack away at the poppy and pile it into a giant pyre. Fumigation is the top method for the army's poppy elimination. In this little valley, however, the soldiers are killing off the plants by hand, rather than spraying harsh chemicals. Orzua says they don't want to ruin the fruits and vegetables local farmers eat to survive. At the top of the heroin supply chain are largely poor farmers hoping to sell opium paste to cartels. This 2-acre poppy plot could earn a farmer roughly $750 per harvest, half that in a bad year. The best farmers can harvest three times each year. But once it's processed into heroin, its price multiplies and will yield tens of thousands of dollars in the U.S. "The farmers are the ones who get exploited most. But if they aren't offered a better alternative, they'll just keep returning to poppy," Orzua says. "I'm not justifying it, I just understand their needs."

MORE