A key step to securing peace will be to wean Afghan farmers off growing poppies. “This is a bad way to make money. It trains you for no other occupation. When a father feeds a boy with money from poppies, he will grow poppies too. He’ll have no other skill. We have no carpenters, no engineers, no mechanics. We have nothing.” With a sad smile, the farmer says, “It is a kind of cancer on our country.”
Opium Wars
Robert Draper | National Geographic | January 18, 2011 | 4,760 words