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Afghan officials find 260 tons of hashish

Wed, 06/11/2008 - 5:52pm

Here's a question for all you expert readers out there. What happens when you burn 260 tons of hashish?

Afghan counternarcotics officials said Wednesday that they uncovered 260 tons of hashish hidden in 6-foot-deep trenches in southern Afghanistan in what one DEA official said appears to be the world's biggest drug bust.

The hashish, found in the southern province of Kandahar on Monday, was worth more than $400 million and would have netted the Taliban about $14 million in profits, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said.

The hashish weighed as much as 30 double-decker London buses, ISAF said. The drugs were burned on site. Hashish is a concentrated form of marijuana.

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You Get, Like...

by RufusJSquirrel on Wed, 06/11/2008 - 8:02pm

Totally blazed dude.

Bad Biz

by medrano316 on Wed, 06/11/2008 - 8:28pm

Those are some terrible margins... 3.5% net margins? The Taliban needs to get into a new business!

Ah, the "Controlled Burn"

by grr on Thu, 06/12/2008 - 8:45am

Back in the day (before about 1980) it was common practice for U.S. police agencies to expose trainees to burning marijuana, so that they could later explain in court how they recognized the smell of burning weed should they come across it. I was 'trained' that way at the U.S. Army Military Police School.

BTW, regarding that apparently small profit margin, the DEA typically reports the 'street value' of drug seizures (the imputed value of all the final retail sales that would have occured after the 260 tons had been cut up into individual consumer-size units), while the Taliban would have received the far lower wholesale price.