Ted Poe: “I was a prosecutor and a judge in Texas for 30 years total, and I can tell you that I saw the results of poppy and opium…”

“I was a prosecutor and a judge in Texas for 30 years total, and I can tell you that I saw the results of poppy and opium fields in my courtroom. Opiates make victims out of capable, independent citizens, and they turn decent people into monsters, and I have seen it with my own eyes. Case after case after case. Illicit drugs take complete control of people's lives, and they are now strangling the democracy in Afghanistan. Opiates not only poison Americans, the poppy trade funds our enemies. The Taliban, or more appropriately, those demons in the desert, are getting rich off of the poppy fields, and they are using that money against American troops and NATO troops. They are using their wealth to become more numerous, more organized, and more deadly to the military of NATO and the United States. They are promoting intolerance and propping up evil and propelling Afghanistan really back toward the dark ages to a fundamentalist rule. In the 2005 and 2006 growing season, poppy production in Afghanistan actually grew to almost 60 percent. That resulted in a net growth of almost 50 percent in the production of illicit opium, and all the profit from this drug trade lined the pockets of our enemies, the Taliban. Those poppy fields are growing like weeds, and they are choking Afghanistan's freedom. Also, those narcotics are eventually choking the lives out of many Americans addicted to opiates.”