Why aren't we buying it?

I see an Army Times article from 17 November this year (sorry, dead tree version so no link) talking about the problems in Aghfanistan with drug lords, and the new policy with NATO allowing us to target them.

The article states that about 93% of the world's opium trade is suppled by Afghanistan (with last year being a production record), and also that we don't want to go after poppy fields in wholesale counter-narcotics destruction ops because it would alienate working class Afghans. It also states that this drug trade is funding Al-Qaeda type organizations to the tune of at least $100 million yearly.

So my question is, why the f*** aren't we buying it from them?

Look; opium and its derivative drugs are not without therapeutic value. The opium trade is NOT going away around the world, and the reason why Afghan farmers want to be involved in it is because it is the only CASH crop they can produce in quantity. Sure, they can raise food crops, but they have no collection and distribution system that allows them to get such to market without spoilage and no system for collecting payment.

The drug trade takes care of that problem with a product that has little spoilage, less bulk and weight, and the market comes to them to pick up product, and delivers cash money.

Cash is necessary for all those goods you just can't grow for yourself. Little stuff, like electric generators and light bulbs. I know, most Americans literally can't even conceive of a life without electricity, but trust me, it sucks. Not to mention all those other niceties, like ammunition and guns so that other people don't take what little you have (including your wife and daughters).

We are NOT going to get the Afghans to stop growing opium, until they have something better to grow, and other products to sell for cash. So stop fighting it. Buy the opium ourselves, and USE it.

I know that legislators, the moral majority, and yes, even the pharma companies have a vested interest in not allowing the use of opium-derived narcotics even in legitimate medical practice in the United States. So refine the shit and sell it, or hell- give it away to doctors in Africa. Control it and make people account for it. Just don't destroy it. Stop making the market value of it artificially high, stop giving the farmers an incentive to do business with terrorists, stop keeping people poorer than they need to be, and stop failing at providing peace in Afghanistan already.

Edited to add a note for the Obama Administration: feel free to run with this idea. That would actually be a change I could support. You can even claim it for yourself, I don't care.