Ujjal Dosanjh
Liberal MP and foreign-affairs critic

"The way it has been dealt with so far has been counterproductive. We’ve been making enemies of the local people who own land.…The Senlis Council and others have made requests for a pilot project to begin to grow poppies for med­icinal purposes under licence. And I think that that is the way to go, ultimately."

Gail Davidson
Co-chair, Lawyers Against the War

"Canada and other NATO countries should pay Afghan farmers through subsidies that would put them in equal position to U.S. and European farmers—to grow food crops, to distribute the food harvested within Afghanistan, and to export the excess. Children in Afghanistan, even those in hospitals, are dying of starvation. Food is the medicine that these children need."

Stephen Easton
SFU economics professor and Fraser Institute senior fellow

"The drug market is a very lucrative market, relative to what is available to them. And unless we can come up with a crop that will match their earnings, they are not going to switch crops. And with the drug trade that we have, anything that we try to do, if we try to use it for legal production, will leak into the illegal market very quickly."

Ann Livingston
Executive program director, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users

"They need to create a regulated market for a crop that is that important for revenue. I think that we need to look at a scheme to use it for medication.…There is a sense that Afghan heroin is in Vancouver—and I have no idea what kind of heroin is in Vancouver—and it would be very interesting to know."