In 2009, 6900 metric tons (mt) of opium were produced compared to 2010′s 3600 mt. At the same time, the price per kilogram rose from US$64 to US$169. Therefore, ironically, opium farmers actually made considerably more in 2010 for each hectare used to grow poppies. In 2009: US$3600. In 2010: US$4900.

Incidentally, the income from a hectare of wheat decreased in the same time period, from US$1200 to US$710.

The fact that Afghan farmers can make far more money growing opium than they can growing a legitimate crop like wheat means that many more people will be encouraged to change their crops. Thus basic human needs and financial forces end up contributing to the amount of heroin that circulates around the world.

Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of heroin. Most of its supply makes its way into Russia and Western Europe with smaller amounts traveling to Australia and Africa. In fact, 90 percent of Russia’s annual consumption of 35 mt of heroin for its 2.5 million addicts travels from Afghanistan through the porous borders of Tajikistan and Kazakhstan on its way to Moscow, St. Petersburg and other points.

When addicts can quit using heroin, the demand will drop and this will drop the price. Simple finances can, ultimately, reduce the amount of drugs being trafficked. But addicts must have hope of a true recovery. That means drug rehabilitation centers that truly reduce cravings and don’t just substitute one drug for another.

This article was brought to you by Narconon International. Narconon is an international organization dedicated to eliminating addiction through drug and alcohol rehabilitation and drug education.

In many drug rehabs, medical staff prescribe methadone or buprenorphine to prevent opiate withdrawal pain and sickness. But the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers located around the world provide a healthier, more comfortable method of withdrawal. Using nutritional supplements, physical relaxation processes and one-on-one support, opiate addicts at a Narconon center experience a far more tolerable withdrawal process than they may have gone through previously. This step is followed by a thorough detoxification process employing a dry-heat sauna. For many addicts, these two beginning phases of the Narconon drug recovery program provide real hope of lasting sobriety.

For more information about the Narconon drug rehab program, visit www.narconon-news.org.

After the war, the factory where methadone was invented fell under American control, which led to the first clinical trials of Methadone in 1947. The American pharmaceutical company, Eli-Lilly, first coined the name Dolophine – which comes from a combination of the Latin word dolor (pain) and the French word fin (end).

Eli Lilly was unsuccessful in marketing Dolophine (methadone) as a low cost analgesic and by the early 1950s, the drug was hardly being used at all. In 1968, New York City doctors, at Rockefeller University, Marie Nyswander and Vincent Dole, were experimenting with different drugs to help heroin users and discovered methadone could be used as a substitute for any other opiate, including heroin.

During the Nixon presidency, Vietnam veterans were returning home to America with heroin addictions that were costing them $5-a-day in Southeast Asia, but required $100 or more to maintain in the US. In a speech in 1971, Nixon called drug addiction “public enemy number one” and supported an expansion of methadone as a detox medication and as a replacement maintenance for those opiate addicts that had relapse histories.

From that time to present, methadone maintenance clinics have become very profitable business enterprises, since the cost of methadone is about ten cents/dose and those that are on daily doses of methadone cannot easily stop taking this drug, since methadone is known to produce the highest level of symptoms of opiate withdrawal.

Profits from the methadone dispensing business are also assured by the government, both state and federal, limiting competition by only allowing a certain number of clinics within a given area and since their patients must have the drug daily, the clinics can basically charge whatever the public can afford and be assured of repeat business.

Alcohol and drug addiction counselors whose purpose is to rehabilitate addicts so that they can reclaim the beauty of living drug-free have always opposed the use of substituting one drug for another, and for good clinical reasons.

The purpose of drug rehab is to restore a normalcy in the lives of people that have been avoiding life’s pain and, consequently the pleasure, as well, by taking opiates or painkillers. The substituting of one drug for another is counter to this noble effort and makes the goal of a drug-free life a futile endeavor. Therefore, the obvious moral prerogative is to free the individual from the compulsive need to take methadone daily or suffer consequences that are quite severe.

To convince the public that methadone maintenance is the only effective treatment for most opiate addicts, the methadone industry documents their business by quoting numerous articles claiming that the brain makes certain irreversible changes during opiate addiction that force the “recovering” addict to continue to supply their bodies with daily doses of opiate medications.

For those who believe this research and don’t investigate further, this argument may seem logical, however, it doesn’t present the obvious argument that even though there are approximately half million people on methadone maintenance, there are literally millions of ex-heroin addicts that are living successful, normal lives without the need to “repair their brain chemistry”. Anecdotal interviews with methadone patients has revealed that it is very hard to find anyone on methadone maintenance that likes their treatment and doesn’t feel enslaved by their need for these daily doses.