International fraternity received a boost here in America with the news that a large portion of our heroin junkie community is already supporting efforts to rebuild the economy of Afghanistan. The war-torn country, war-torn by us, has had an economic windfall by producing 87% of the world’s opium and heroin derivatives, and a good percentage of that world’s heroin buyers live in America, typically our inner-cities, our rural opium dens, and our rock concert halls.
“It’s the least we can do to help out a poor population struggling to regain livelihood,” said “Jizzy” John Webb, a Chicago-area heroin abuser of three years, before drawing a bloody cloud into a syringe stuck in his arm, then shooting it back in.
But fans of heroin aren’t the only ones calling “hurrah” at the news. Libertarian economists agree as well. Malcolm Calhoun, of the Sweet Tit, Alabama Calhouns, a developer of open-air flea markets and international playboy, applauded the entrepreneurial spirit of the Taliban-free Afghanis.
“If only more enterprising young men and women would dare to bend these silly laws and make their own fortunes, we wouldn’t need welfare in this country,” said Calhoun, tapping his pen on his desk as if it made him seem more important. “This country is still suffering backward thinking about growing opium. We would rather subsidize work than let people grown their own stuff and sell it for a major profit—where does that leave us? Buying costly lamps and making inefficient use of our closet floor space. Meanwhile, Afghanistan rakes in the moolah, while honest guys with valuable gardening skills are forced to seek income running in city council elections. By the way—vote Calhoun in May.”
Despite holding a virtual monopoly on the world’s opium supply, Afghanistan claims it wants out of the business. As a country overcome by poverty and a war-devastated infrastructure, not to mention crippling years as a third world country, Afghanistan’s anti-drug czar, a position the country actually has, occupied by a guy who could probably be doing more important work, has proposed that cash subsidies will be needed to end the flow of Afghan gold to the drug-bogarting world. Under the parental guise of the U.S., Afghani president Hamid Karzai declared a holy war on drugs when he took office in December, and as history has long proven, when Afghanis declare a holy war on something, it gets both barrels.
Counter-Narcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi: “Right now, the 2.3 million farmers who are growing opium in Afghanistan can make more than twice as much with that crop as they can for more legal products, like cotton, rice, and wheat, which are not good for mainlining, I can assure you, but are much more needed within our own country. It is my firm belief that, if we pay them half those prices with money we do not have, they will give up growing opium. I also believe, if I were to run and jump fast enough, I could climb a rainbow all the way to the top.”
Two junkies, Ray and Ray-Ray, who frequent the alley behind the commune building here in Flatbush, New Jersey, believed international legalization of opium sales offered the better economic solution.
“Check it out,” said Ray-Ray, or possibly Ray, “alcohol and tobacco are, like, ten times more deadly than heroin. I can, like, get drunk and drive a car, that’s legal, and I can kill, like, a dozen people driving over them. What the fuck? But if I shoot up with heroin, I’m way too fucking out of it to ever drive a car. It’s just safer, dude.”
“Plus,” said the other Ray, “you can make all kinds of industrial shit out of opium, like rope, clothing, and wigs.”
The two smackhounds conferred privately for a few minutes, then admitted that you really can’t make any of that stuff, to their knowledge, but they would still like the twenty bucks this reporter promised them.