To Orwell Today,

Hi Jackie,

There's been some interesting stuff in the media recently on drugs in particular.

It was commonly assumed by us common masses that one of the reasons for our invasion into Afghanistan was to control the mass profiteering and illegal sales of opium by the Taliban to aid the war against drugs and to halt the sales of drugs into the Western World. However, since our occupation the growth of the drug industry there has expanded substantially, to such an extent that up to 98 per cent of the world's opium comes from there, feeding our addicts in the Western World with heroin etc.

Meanwhile, here in Britain three of the leading selected advisory board scientific expert advisors have resigned due to the government ignoring their findings and recommendations that alcohol and nicotine are far more addictive etc than cannabis resin and that cannibas should be declassified:

Senior Scientist backs sacked Chief Drug Advisor's stance on cannabis. Times, Nov 4, 2009 (...Professor John Beddington, when asked whether he agreed with Professor Nutt that cannabis was less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol, said: "I think the scientific evidence is absolutely clear cut. I would agree with it".... Fresh evidence supporting Professor Nutt's view that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes has also emerged from new addiction research led by one of his former colleagues on the ACMD [Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs]...

Seems BIG BROTHER is really supporting the growth of highly dangerous drugs such as heroin whilst discouraging the use of the less addictive ones.

Here's another story I discovered that will no doubt be of interest to your readers:

Occupiers involved in drug trade, IR Press TV, Nov 1, 2009 (...The Afghan minister of counter narcotics says foreign troops are earning money from drug production in Afghanistan. General Khodaidad Khodaidad said the majority of drugs are stockpiled in two provinces controlled by troops from the US, the UK, and Canada, IRNA reported on Saturday. He went on to say that NATO forces are taxing the production of opium in the regions under their control. Afghanistan is the world's biggest supplier of opium. Drug production in the Central Asian country has increased dramatically since the US-led invasion eight years ago. A recent report by the United Nations states that Afghan opium is having a devastating impact on the world, killing thousands in consumer countries. Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Ahmad Wali Karzai, a brother of the Afghan president, is involved in the opium trade, meets with Taliban leaders, and is also a CIA operative. The opium trade is the major source of Taliban financing.

All the very best,
Ray Wills

Greetings Ray,

Thanks for those news stories - yes, there's lots of talk these days about the war on drugs (actually war BY drugs or war FOR drugs). See DRUG WAR IS PEACE

I've got a story for you. Did you know that Canada (which has 3,000 troops in Afghanistan helping oversee poppy production there) isn't satisfied with importing the largest supply of heroin the nation has ever dealt with (note 'drug-dealing' pun) and is contemplating growing opium poppies here at home? It's being pitched the same way as it is in Afghanistan, ie that growing poppies is more profitable for the farmer than growing wheat:

Another kind of flower could be coming to Wild Rose Country. A type of opium poppy used to make painkillers may be sown across southern Alberta's plains, a newly released document shows. The federal government is giving thought to planting Canada's first commercial poppy crop and the parched Prairies are the perfect place to do it, says a briefing note for Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. Ottawa is eyeing a variation of the opium poppy called the thebaine poppy. Thebaine -- chemically similar to both morphine and codeine -- is used to make painkillers such as percocet, buprenorphine, oxycodone, naloxone and naltrexone. Poppies could be a cash crop for farmers battered by record dry weather this year. "Significant domestic consumer demand and commercial opportunity for the agricultural sector exists relative to poppy production in Canada," the note says. The government estimates farmers could earn $3,000 to $6,000 a hectare growing poppies, compared to about $800 for a hectare of wheat. The Canadian Press obtained the document under the Access to Information Act. The Feb. 10 briefing note is marked for "information only." It's not clear if the government ever reached a conclusion over a commercial poppy crop.

Can you believe this nightmare world they're setting up - turning bread basket nations into starving, drug-destroyed basket cases? See WEATHER/FOOD/WATER/AIR CONTROL & TAKE NOT OUR DAILY BREAD

It should be obvious to everyone by now - after 8 years of occupation by thousands of Western World troops in Afghanistan - that it's not the illusive, invisible "Taliban" running the heroin trade. It's the governments of USA, UK, Canada, Australia and other United Nations members running it (nations united) - from its source in the Afghan opium fields to its destination on the streets in the homelands. See AFGHAN NARC0-STATE NOW & NATO KILLING FOR DRUG TRADE & CANADA HEROIN HIT-KIT & OPIUM WARS WITHIN

Looking at the map below of Afghanistan - showing where 60,000 NATO troops are presently deployed - I'm tracing the route I travelled when I was in Afghanistan in 1974, five years before the Russian Communists invaded and began their ten-year war-mongering occupation, bombing, land mining and destroying the land and the people (like what we're doing now). See AFGHAN KIDS DIG SOVIET BOMBS

I travelled by bus from Iran to Herat in the west, then to Kandahar in the south, then to Kabul in the east, then through the Khyber Pass into Pakistan. See AFGHANISTAN REMEMBERED

The photo on left above is at Khyber Pass (waiting for a flat tire to be fixed). I bought the shirt tailor-made in Kandahar. I'm wearing it also in the middle photo, taken in Australia a couple months later. I got that carpet-bag purse (which I still possess) in Herat - and scanned it above just to show.

This time of year - as we approach Remembrance Day and everyone wears a poppy - I always think about Afghanistan and the famous poem IN FLANDERS FIELDS, which I adapted to IN AFGHAN FIELDS:

Actually, not a day goes by that I don't think about Afghanistan. I hate what our government is inflicting on our soldiers there - and what our soldiers are inflicting on the Afghan people - all under the Orwellian lie of WAR IS PEACE.

I pray that this year is the last year poppies grow in Afghanistan, or that our troops are over there. Give those thousands of soldiers orders to dig up every single poppy and re-plant the fields with wheat and other crops for food. Let our new mandate be "We will not rest, while poppies grow, in Afghan fields."

All the best,
Jackie Jura

British Legion poster defaced to attack Tony Blair. Telegraph, Oct 29, 2009
The original wording on the poster, featuring war widow Hester Wright, 22, and her six-year-old son Josh clutching a portrait of her dead soldier husband, should read: For their sake, wear a poppy. But objectors to Mr Blair's war record altered one version of it outside Gillingham railway station, Kent, to read: "For their sake, prosecute Blair". And a small number of other Poppy Appeal posters in the Medway area are said to have been changed to make the original message read: For their sake, bring them home. A spokesman for the Royal British Legion said: "We do understand that the current campaign in Afghanistan and the recent activities in Iraq are not popular universally in the country. Opinion is divided but we do find that the public is four-square behind our British Armed Forces who are out there representing their country and making sacrifices." The defacing of the posters came to light at 4.30am this morning and they are to be amended back to their original messages, the spokesman added. Ms Wright, from Mansfield, Notts, became one of the public faces of the Poppy Appeal after her husband, Damian Wright, died in a roadside explosion in Afghanistan in 2007, aged 23. The appeal aims to raise £31 million, and this year's campaign is emphasising the need to help the Afghan generation of the Armed Forces and their families.