I would be delighted if the Afghans could prosper on Guar beans – but am pessimistic about the prospects (without knowing much about it).

You can’t legislate for ‘good’ taste but drawing attention to ‘bad’ taste seems a fair policy, for architecture and for gardens http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2010/04/28/bad-garden-design-america/
The UK had something similar to Australia’s Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce. It was called the Assets Recovery Agency and in 2005 had 180 staff, and an annual budget of £15.5m. Unfortunately it only recovered £4.6m in 2005 and it was merged with another agency in 2008. Fighting crime pays as well, or perhaps better, than crime itself.

“The Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce brings together resources from the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Australian Crime Commission (ACC), Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) with the aim of enhancing the identification and pursuit of the profits of organised crime, where there is a link to a Commonwealth offence.

The Taskforce has been established as a Commonwealth-level measure to address the threat posed by organised crime. It has been estimated that organised crime costs Australia between $10-$15 billion dollars every year, representing a significant threat to Australian society. Organised criminal syndicates have become more business-like in their approach to laundering money and acquiring assets.”

Goodness knows what you could use these palaces for once they were confiscated?

I am not sure that Guar is the best alternative crop as it would seem that it is most useful as an export. Afganistan seems to need to have its own sustainable agriculture to build a domestic economy and feed the nation in peace time?
[ http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/29/07/2012/134135/Afghan-farmers-a-force-for-good.htm ]

It would certainly be a great thing for Afghan farmers to have an alternative to poppies. The Kabul skyline is said to be domonated by Poppy Palaces and Narcotecture. Guartecture would be a wholesome alternative.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that those who intervene in Afghanistan ‘get what they deserve’. Rich industrialised countries should not spend their resources in blowing poor people to smitherines. What would we think if the Taliban decided that tobacco and alcohol were such evils that they were justified in rolling their military into Europe or America?
Part of the problem is that any politician who tries to talk sense about drugs is immediately attacked by the propular press as an outlandish heretic.

The first and third world effects of the drugs trade are very different but they are linked as with other economic activity.

I very much like Lawrence’s last remark that ‘talking about addiction is not helpful. Addiction is a minority problem, one that must be addressed, but not one that should drive the debate’. Somehow, there has to be an intelligent debate which includes all the social, economic, health etc dimensions of drugs. Two other points:
1) just as the health hazards of tobacco are listed on packets, the health hazards of marijuana should also be explained and, indeed, compared with those of alcohol and tobacco
2) the negative side effects of banning drugs should be analysed and quantified. They include providing vast revenues to organized crime and destabalizing producer countries. The Taliban is thought to get about half its income from drug.