Sri Lanka It's Happening

July 5, 2004

The poor of this country can choose from four different varieties of opium. The government is now planning to take away that right. Not the right to use but the right to choose.

Two of the varieties sold here have their origins in India and the other two were grown in the middle east. All of them have many sub species but the differences between the big four are hard enough to detect to let's not bother with further classification.

More than 70% of the country's population use one of the indian varieties (let's call this O7 for want of a better name). This brand and it's vendors occupy a place of prominence and even enjoy government protection, in fact some of these vendors have made their way into parliament.

All opium vendors redistribute a portion of their wealth back to the poor so that they can continue to keep them hooked. What has caused concern is that O7 vendors neglected to redistribute some of their wealth in this manner. The only cheques they ever wrote were addressed to the local Mercedes-Benz vendor. As a result people started to move away from O7 to other brands

The vendors in their panic have found a novel way to stop prople from switching brands - enter parliament and pass laws to make it illegal. That way they can continue to add to their collection of Mercs, a collection that recieved a boost when they became MPs.

It's not clear yet whether these vendors will push for legislation that make it compulsory to use this drug. Some people don't use any of the four varieties and no doubt the pushers are annoyed at this loss of income.

Posted by raditha at July 5, 2004 3:44 AM