The benefits of opium trade

The benefits of opium trade - longer version

The marketing organisation is well adapted to the intense risk of the country and the characteristics of the product. The commodity chain stretching from farm gate, to laboratory to the border and beyond is well organised. Technical services, inputs and financing available at each stage making the drugs trade the most efficient sector in the national economy. While farmers gain a living, albeit, precarious, and opium traders a livelihood, the profits accrue higher up the scale. Different parts of the operation yield different returns, and even drug couriers and foot soldiers in the export trade can earn handsome profits but at the risk of life, limb and liberty. But the wealth is concentrated in the hands of power brokers and politicians, while feeding the Taliban insurgents who once banned poppy cultivation.