I don't think that your figures on opium are correct. An average farmer in Afghanistan makes a profit of around $1,000 to $2,000 per hectare (2.47 acres). And there is always the risk of your crop getting confiscated by the authorities.
Opium / $500,000,000 profit per year is not accurate, this is the the money from all circles from farmer to the user in the end. I watched some documentary about farmers that are making cocaine, they do it because only that is valuable for selling, from everything else they just have loses. In that documentary farmers reveled that they earn 200 $ for one kilogram!!! And that is a clean stone, they cut it many times until it gets to the end so 1 kg become 5 kg or more, and price grows more then 100 times. I also think that farmers in the Afghanistan don`t earn this much, they risk a lot but in the end others earn much.
I think you should add weed on this list,(depends in which country you live in) you can grow it inside, outside, if you get permits from government you can export it, make oils from it.
In the U.S., what is available is pills like oxys that give a very poor quality high, and heroin, if you like opiates. In other words those products are very poor quality, but extremely expensive.
People are dying left and right from these toxic lab opiates, other synthetics etc.
And the prices of these drugs, in dollars, is very high. Yesterday two separate drug counselors od's separately and died at the same rehab.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/25/drug-counselors-overdose-die-pennsylvania-addiction-facility/344982001/With natural opium, if you sell a comparable amount, at a comparable price, $500,000,000 for an acre might be not so much exageration.
Especially if you add the selling point "Natural opium smoking is not fatal". If the U.S. legalized opium there would be less use by kids because they would learn facts not fictions, less deaths because you don't die from smoking opium, plus, if being an addict is your trip, opium is a better high than the manufactured opiates.
Next step is to convince the drug companies that the switch to legal opium is good
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/12/19/pharma-execs-arrested-conspiracy-create-opioid-addicts-profit/http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/12/19/pharma-execs-arrested-conspiracy-create-opioid-addicts-profit/Earlier this month, federal prosecutors in the State of Massachusetts announced the arrest of six former pharmaceutical executives of Insys Therapeutics, Inc., manufacturer of a fentanyl based pain medication called ‘Subsys.’ Their nefarious scheme was a well-organized plot to have doctors overprescribe this medicine and ensure that pill shoppers were well-supplied.
https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.htmlIn 2014, almost 2 million Americans abused or were dependent on prescription opioids.
As many as 1 in 4 people who receive prescription opioids long term for noncancer pain in primary care settings struggles with addiction.7
Every day, over 1,000 people are treated in emergency departments for misusing prescription opioids.
https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/hookedrx/pharmaceutical-industry-az-opioid-epidemic/From 1999 to 2014, overdose deaths involving prescription pills quadrupled. In that 15-year period, more than 165,000 people died from an opioid overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Big Pharma” companies exert their influence in many ways. They spend billions to promote their products to doctors. They drop millions lobbying Congress and state legislators to curry favor with policymakers. And they flood television and magazines with direct-to-consumer ads to hawk their drugs.
In terms of prescription pain medication, the tactics have worked. The U.S. makes up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet it consumes 99 percent of all global hydrocodone and 80 percent of the world’s opioids, according to the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.
http://naturalnews.com/2017-01-31-pharma-company-raised-the-price-of-opioid-overdose-antidote-six-fold-to-profit-from-epidemic.htmlPharma company raised the price of Opioid overdose “antidote” six-fold to profit from epidemic
As the number of Americans overdosing on Big Pharma’s golden ticket — the opioid painkiller — continues to increase, it seems that one pharma company has taken it upon themselves to increase the cost of the antidote by more than six-fold.
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The device, called Evzio, is used to administer naloxone — the antidote used to treat opioid overdoses. It’s been estimated that over the course of 2015 alone, more than 33,000 people died from opioid overdoses. Deaths continued to skyrocket in 2016, as well.
In 2014, a twin-pack of Evzio was priced at an expensive $690. Now, that price has reached an astronomical $4,500 for the very same duo.
