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http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-spoils-of-war-afghanistan-s-multibillion-dollar-heroin-trade/91
http://www.thefix.com/content/baltimore-heroin-capital-us
I find it increasingly incredible that people can fail to make the most basic and logical connections between things. We currently have one official “war” overseas. This is in Afghanistan, the origin of the vast majority of the WORLD’s opiate/heroin supply. We currently have one official domestic “war”. It rages across the country but is very prominent, violent and desperate in America’s own “heroin capital”, Baltimore, Maryland.
Baltimore is a port city, right on interstate 95, with relatively quick access to the entire east coast. This is the reason why the trade of heroin is so violent and the heroin is so pure, simple market based economics. Supply and demand, availability and purity. If Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of pure heroin, then it stands to reason that much of the product brought in by folks (who are most certainly not Greek) originated in that land. Now consider for a second that there is clear evidence that the US military allows and, at times, fosters heroin/poppy production in Afghanistan in the name of “stability”. It is really the underpinning of their economy and, as with many in Baltimore interestingly enough, the only available means for many to make any money at all (as David Simon put it, and this would apply to both locations, the drug trade is essentially a “company store” that runs the local economy).
Recall that recently, DEA agents in Colombia were found to be engaging in parties with prostitutes provided by drug cartels. Recall that, during our nation’s most recent long “war” aside from Afghanistan (Vietnam, not Iraq) a single man from Harlem was supposedly able to hide a massive heroin smuggling operation (because, you see, at that time, the golden triangle was the heroin center of the world, and the heroin epidemic was also in full swing in America’s cities) from the US military and CIA, using US government planes. Recall as well that evidence clearly shows that US government official at all levels, from the Reagan White House (who gave aid and comfort to the young Taliban) to local Baltimore Police, have been involved in drug dealing and smuggling over the past several decades.
There are other connections for the open and interested mind to make. A television show focused on Baltimore and its heroin trade debuted (June 2002) around the same time as the Afghanistan war was kicking into full swing (it officially began towards the end of 2001). The Wire, as the name indicates, was focused on the use of surveillance to take down top drug dealers. The theme of surveillance was an interesting one at the time, given that filming for the first season likely started right around the same time that the USA Patriot Act was pushed into “law” by America’s law “makers”. The show presented surveillance in a positive light; I don’t think this can be argued. Interestingly, the Patriot Act has been used to snare drug operations much more than it has been used to combat “terror”. Many would say the Wire was targeted to specific demographic in order to legitimize the idea of surveillance to them, but I assume many would moan
and groan about “conspiracy theories” and spurious connections if I tried to delve too far into this idea, so let’s move on.
Anyhow, moving forward to the present. As we stand now, the country with our most war-like military presence is the Heroin capital of the world. The city that has most recently seen martial-law presence is the Heroin capital of the United States. Would a reasonable person make the assumption that these two facts are not connected and need no analysis? Do we still want to believe, for our sanity, safety, ideology or whatever it may be, that our government, from the halls of the White House down to the beat cop on the streets of West Baltimore, are not directly involved in the Heroin trade? When confronted with the fact that prescription drug addiction, I’m sorry, opiate addiction, is also on the rise (in fact, opiates stolen from that infamous CVS in Baltimore has been stated by the DEA to be the reason for the recent uptick in violence in Baltimore) and a major public health crisis that is filling the pockets of medical professionals,
pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies, do we think it is also “coincidence” it occurs concurrent with opiate cultivation and heroin dealing, as well as purity of heroin, being on the rise?
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whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me
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