Andrew,

I don’t buy it (erm, yes, literally). If the Good Guys get into the market for opium, then the price will go up. The drug runners will still want a supply. The Good Guys’ only response will be to bid the price up. More people will come into the market – after all, demand has probably doubled. If you then buy that extra supply in an effort to keep it away from the Bad Guys, you’ll be creating a Global Opium Mountain and more suppliers will come in. If you continue to pay off anyone who wants to grow Opium, you’ll be placing the Afghans in a Good-Guy (read US taxpayer) funded welfare dependency akin to the Common Agricultural Policy, complete with all the arguments as to why this should become perpetual and all the cons you expect from such programs. If not, they’ll sell to the drug runners as before. It’s a tricky problem, but I don’t see your solution as the way out. Before we get dragged down that path, legalization is not a realistic option in a world where people are trying to regulate tobacco and alcohol out of existence…