Help, please I need answer from residents of Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, am trying to understand……?

Question

I was in Amsterdam and felt safer than I did back home in the Philadelphia area. I have seen many slide pictures and videos of your lands where every day it is easier for people to obtain opium (heroine) then it is to obtain clean drinking water. Why don't Americans see a population of heroine addicts and expensive drug addicted babies there when 93% of the world’s heroine comes from Afghanistan? Why are these drug addicted individuals and babies found in EVERY town threw out this United States of America?

Please answer this question; your answer can help the world economy and the very future of affordable healthcare worldwide. Thank you very much.

Answer 1

Few problems here. A) Heroin is not the only thing made from opium and opium poppies. B) Afghanistan is not the only country that grows opium poppies. C) Heroin is not the sole source of crime.

Answer 2

I had a lot of trouble understanding your question.  I think the answer is that the west (Europe and America) are so rich and so morally corrupt that millions of people have the attitude that if it feels good do it.

Answer 3

Most of that makes no sense. Opium is not heroin.

Answer 4

You may have felt safer, but you were in the highest crime city in Europe.  It's all in your head.

Answer 5

I am not a resident of Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan, but I have spent many years in the Middle East, and here is my perspective:

Narcotics use is counter to Islam, so most of the poppy farmers in that region grow the crop to make a living but have no interest in using it themselves. Some of them even believe that they are doing something immoral by producing a product for drug addicts, however, no other crop that they can grow would pay anywhere near as much.

The sad thing is that the middle men make all the real profits.

Someone needs to form an NGO making poppy products OTHER than opium, cut out the middle man, and market those products internationally.

Suggestions:

- Poppy seeds are edible, and are used, especially in Central Europe but also throughout the rest of the world for the preparation of pastry, nougat; etc.

- The seeds provide a good-quality oil which is used for human consumption, especially in northern Europe.

- In view of its high content of quick-drying substances, the first juice extracted is used to make oil varnishes, soap, greases, perfume, etc.

- The seeds are also used in pharmacy for making emulsions.

- Oil-cake made from poppy-seeds is excellent cattle feed and a first-class fertilizer.

- Lastly; because of the beauty of its flowers, the opium poppy is used throughout the world as an ornamental plant.

Answer 6

I've been there - there are certainly issues of drug addiction (which is heavily downplayed) in the countries where the drugs are cultivated and produced.  However, for the most part, the drugs are seen as a cash crop worth more on the market than the fleeting benefit of usage, which is generally  illegal and religiously contra-indicated.

Note:  In many Islamic countries, it clearly states at the border that smuggling narcotics is punishable by the death sentence.