One oft-forgotten aspect of the war in Afghanistan are the (futile?) efforts of NATO and the US Armed Forces to eradicate the supply of opium. What if, instead of trying to eradicate the supply of Afghan opium through military force or coercion, the US and her Allies were to take a market or property-rights approach by buying out the entire supply of opium? In this interesting paper, David Zetland, an economist living in Amsterdam, considers what would happen to the market price of heroin if the US agreed to buy out the opium harvest from Afghan suppliers.
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