h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Britain has a drugs problem; too many young people are getting hooked on heroin and turn to crime or prostituion to feed their habit.

Afghanistan has a problem with the Taleban forcing farmers to grow opium. It produced 92% of the world's output last year:
http://www.economist.co.uk/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9409154

Perhaps it's all a bit simplistic of me, but why not buy the opium off the Afghan farmers and give it to our drug addicts on prescription? That way, people don't have to turn to crime and we can keep an eye on their rehabilitation, we kill off the market for for the drug pushers, and we also choke off the money supply to the Taleban. Even if the going rate for illegal opium is four times that of the legally-grown, pharmaceutically-destined crop, it would still be a cheap way of killing three birds with one stone.

I'd like to know if there are any logical flaws with this argument.

I heard there was a shortage in the NHS of morphine and other heroin-based drugs generally so there exists a legitimate demand too.

I believe when the British controlled Southern Afghanistan, a blind eye was turned to poppy production. Much to the fury of the Americans.

What's the difference between prescribed heroin and Methadone anyway? Aren't they both addictive and harmful?

Yes, they are. And yes, there is a shortage of opiates.

The excuses I have heard for not offering to buy the opium crop are based around the illegal price being four times the legal price (for legitmate therapeutic uses). Of course, totally ignores the fact that the price of the farmer is a small fraction of that on the street, once the pushers have taken their very large cut. And that the artificially inflated price at source would fall drastically once the scum who import it were forced out of business.

Even without calling them names, the fact of illegality pushes up the price, simply because the nearer it gets to the street, the more immediate the risk to the handler, and therefore the greater the required profit, to persuade people to run such a risk. Pure economics, if that's not an oxymoron.