HELPING HAND

I had a discussion recently on one of the comment boards on Tim Blair, about whether direct aid or trade agreements are more effective in solving the problem of third world poverty. The right wingers love to tout the WTO free trade spin, but I just can't buy it. Like I told them, I'm all for fair trade but what they're proposing is a free ride on the backs of the indigineous third world for the benefit of the multicorp's profit margin.

I'll believe in free trade when countries are allowed to export what they are capable of producing independently at a profit. Case in point is Ghana, a reasonably peaceful and relatively stable country in sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana has a cash crop that could promote upward economic mobility in a democratic manner among its poorest citizens and would eliminate the need for US aid (and oversight). That crop is cannabis and the country's economy already rests to some extent on what they call ganja.

Marijuana grown in Ghana is of good quality, plentiful and relatively inexpensive. Twenty neatly rolled sticks of pot, or about half an ounce, sell for about $3.

That's right, good pot sells for $6 an ounce in Ghana. Here is the highest stage of capitalism - the free market - in action.

Ghana is not involved in dangerous drugs. It contributes only to the cannabis consumers' economy and is a living example of what legal cannabis cultivation might look like. Africa is a violatile continent rife with political unrest. Not so there.

Ghana is one of the most peaceful countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The country rarely sees any violence (a benefit of pot-smoking?), has a democratically elected government and boasts one of the freest societies in Africa. Pot has been grown and smoked in the country for decades, drawing little comment. In Accra, the coastal capital of Ghana, people smoke discreetly, to be sure, because the sale and possession of pot is technically illegal. But pot is easy to purchase, arrests are rare, and smoking is popular, especially among American and European aid workers in the country.

And the next time the prohibitionists tell you how dangerous marijuana is, please consider this. The author, having lived there himself for two years notes:

... I never saw any signs of pot ripping apart the fabric of Ghanaian life. There are no drug lords in Accra, no gun-toting bodyguards or pot addicts strewn across the city's derelict roads.

Just the opposite is occurring, actually. Pot is giving a people starved for economic opportunity a chance to participate in the global economy. Ghana is one of the losers in the world's experiment with widening trade. Goods flood into Ghana from China, Brazil, Mexico, even the U.S. And not just manufactured products either. Butter is imported from France, pasta and canned tomatoes from Italy, rolled oats from Germany and rice from the U.S. Because the cost of producing and shipping these foods is subsidized by European, U.S. and Canadian governments, their cost in Ghana is sometimes less than it is in the country of origin. And even if it isn't, these imports ruin the lives of African food producers. American rice, imported into Ghana, sells for substantially less than rice grown in Ghana.

There's that US sudsidized rice again. A major staple of the third world and the US producers own the market. The same thing is happening all over Central and South America. The only cash crops that any of these countries can competitively produce are those that keep to market without spoiling. Keep in mind that goods still travel by goat cart, if not by foot, over makeshift bridges and deeply rutted dirt roads. Crops like cannabis and coca leaf are almost the only ones that fit that bill and they do have legitimate medicinal and agricultural applications within civil society.

Nonetheless, my government has deemed the elimination of these two innocent plants to be of the highest priority. Ignoring the generations-old traditional and ritual uses of these herbs, they deem them to be so dangerous as to justify poisoning the planet with herbicidal warfare.

Against this menace stands the DEA. About six months ago, the agency privately persuaded the government of Ghana to accept its advice and mount a campaign of resistance against pot production and distribution. The DEA offered the carrot of "technical assistance" - jargon in foreign-aid speak for equipment and cash that African police, who are woefully underpaid, long for.

For now the DEA-inspired move against Ghana's pot growers has resulted in publicized destruction of fields, some arrests – and more aid for Ghana from a grateful U.S. government.

Coincindentally the consumption markets are not under the control of multinational corporations but they do have a lock on the market for weapons of mass eradication.

Unfortunately US aid in the form of weapons of mass suppression will not benefit the Ghananians either, and will no doubt eventually destablize the country but draw your own conclusions. Read the whole article.