Afghanistan's new policy - encourage narcotics trade profits to be invested for benefit of impoverished nation

A few weeks ago an AP release (picked up by Monterey Herald, for one - March 15) reported on Afghanistan's new policy to encourage some of the "booming narcotics trade" profits to be invested for the benefit of that impoverished nation. Sounds like a pretty brilliant idea, and one that is no less applicable in the wealthiest nation of the world (indeed, the pot is vastly greater in our country of drug consumers than in places where opium is grown). Think of the impact if instead of our woefully unsuccessful "zero tolerance," for which American taxpayers have been paying tens of billions of dollars anually, we adopted some form of "tolerate and tax." Even a tiny percent of the drug industry profits would yield phenomenal benefits in areas like health care, education, housing, etc.!