When I started this blog my intention was to avoid political and social policy comment but I now think that is shirking responsibility. I read the diary of Lady Florentia Sale covering the first Afghan war sometime in the late 1960s. The fact that Imperial armies could be defeated stuck with me ever after (even after seeing the Carry On Up the Khyber movie). Afghanistan has never been a nation in the sense we use that word, it is still a collection of clans. Foreign forces have never survived there. I find that Simon Jenkins often expresses my views better than I can and I agree totally with his article. Face down the militarists and get out of Afghanistan

I think we should buy the opium produced in Afghanistan so that the farmers get a living until some other crop proves better. We should decriminalize the derived drugs, making them controller substances that addicts can get on prescription while they are given treatment to get off the addiction. This will greatly diminish the crime associated with drugs as well as the bad effects of adulterated drugs. There are other good medical uses for opium and its derivatives. If there really was a surplus it could be destroyed. This will not solve all the world’s problems but it would straightforward to implement. Don’t think that I have some vested interest in this, I only have occasional wine with meals, have never used any other drugs, and avoid as many medications as I can.