War On Drugs Claims More Victims

A plane carrying an anti-narcotics team overran the airstrip and crashed into several buildings earlier today. Among the dead was a three-year-old Afghan girl; a casualty of war.

The Helmand province, where the crash took place, is a hot bed of opium growing, supplying an astonishing 20% of the world's supply. The area is also claimed by Taliban insurgents who no doubt use the drug moeny to fund rather nasty practices, a fact the DEA surely uses to justify their presence in the area.

I have a better way of tearing apart this source of income for the Taliban: make drugs legal. Suppliers in more suitable countries (closer to the demand, better infrastructure) who don't fund terrorism will pop up and at the least the Taliban will have to lower its prices (if that arm of their organization don't disappear altogether). It's worth noting drug lords want drugs to be illegal, just as the mafia loved prohibition: less competition and more profit. That alone is a good sign to end the war on drugs.

And a little girl just might be alive right now, too.