POPPY CROP
How can it be that a nation, which is of producing enough food and fiber for domestic needs, can usually far short also ranks as the leading producer of the opium poppy?
The basic reason this happens boils down to a matter of profits but it would seem that those nations who assist by sending agriculture assistance in the form of products, services, and equipment might well consider examining their assistance programs. Into who's hand do such donations go? How does that nation define the term agriculture? Does it go beyond essential food and fiber to include such products as the opium poppy?
This, of course, is not the sort of study which can be made by mailing out a questionnaire form. In fact, no established method of coming into possession of such information is available, save those used in the investigation of other criminal activities. The primary need is for local government to re-define the meaning of the terms and to punish violations as rigidly as the do other transgressions of the law.
In so doing we may well learn a great deal more about ourselves, too. We are a gullible people by world standards and often ready to take their expressed needs of to be dire emergency when that is not always the case. We react though government programs at both national and state levels. We join in church and social club in-gatherings of aid and we, as individuals, often give to groups of unknown merit.
This is not the time to cancel such giving. Far from it. It is now more important n ever that we set forth the image that is so natural to the America public to be willing- even eager - to give to help other in times of genuine need.
Or image around the world is not at its best around the world today because large numbers of people have been mis-led by those who would do us harm to think our motives for taking actions are questionable. In truth, some of our own people, ally themselves with more from what may be called learned-idiocy than any other single reason.
Give. But examine why and where your do so with a bit more care. Try to make sure your gift gets where you intend it to go.
A.L.M. December 15, 2003 [c398wds]
