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Southwest Asia: Opium -- Not Just for Afghanistan Anymore?

Casting a wistful eye on Afghanistan's opium bounty, a Kyrgyz lawmaker made a (presumably tongue in cheek) suggestion that his country also allow poppy production. It would help pay off the foreign debt, and it would lead to an increase in foreign aid, he suggested.

Drug War: The Ride

While Karen Tandy touts triumphs against traffickers, taxi drivers are treating drug-trade terrorism like a tourist attraction. From Reuters:
Streetwise cabbies in northern Mexico are cashing in on the chaos of a violent drug war by whisking wide-eyed visitors about town in macabre tours of seized narco properties and famous murder scenes, Mexico City's Reforma newspaper reported on Sunday.

Taxi drivers in the Pacific coast city of Mazatlan satisfy tourists' ghoulish fascination with a battle between cartels that killed 2,000 people last year, for about 200 pesos ($18) a trip, the newspaper said.
This is great. But we must extend these tours to more fully represent the worldwide horrors of the drug war. From the overflowing prisons in Texas to the barren fumigated hillsides of Colombia, the drug war touches everything and infects everything it touches with hopelessness and decay. Spring for the deluxe package and you can see a drug addict get executed in Thailand.