An answer to Afghanistan's heroin problem

Here's the most sensible solution I've seen on how to overcome the reliance of the Afghani people on poppy cultivation to make their living. The organization, Spirit Aid, has developed a plan to replace Afghan opium - 75% of the global supply - with industrial hemp. They make some great points in its favor.

Hemp is a fast growing, legal cash crop that presents a host of immediate benefits to Afghan society, including a potentially lucrative source of foreign exchange earnings. Hemp can be used to produce heating and cooking fuel, thereby ending the need for people to cut down and burn their remaining forests during severe winters. Using hemp in this way would also help prepare areas of land for future tree planting projects.

At the moment many Afghan children are malnourished. Hemp produces a fruit boasting the nutritional qualities of soya, oily fish and wheat combined. Hemp can produce quantities of wood equivalent to four times that of trees over a similar period of time. This biomass can be used in the production of clean, renewable energy, biodegradable plastics and building composites.

And this could be true for the whole planet.

Industrial hemp is perhaps the only economically and environmentally viable alternative to opium cultivation in Afghanistan. It presents an opportunity to satisfy the immediate fuel, fibre and monetary requirements of two million farming households struggling to survive in one of the most dangerous countries on earth. Hemp cultivation also presents a unique opportunity for environmental improvement in Afghanistan.

But here's the money quote.

Crucially the international community has a moral obligation to prevent a Colombian-style "war on drugs" from taking hold in Afghanistan because if this happens we can be certain the violence, and supply of opium, will never end.

It's a good point. The last thing we need is a Plan Colombia style operation that will not only fail to reduce the supply but would poison a whole new tract of Earth with herbicides.