"Health & Medical News"

A study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness finds that about one in four homeless Americans are veterans, and that more veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are starting to show up in homeless shelters and soup kitchens, the Associated Press reported Nov. 7.

Veterans comprise about 11 percent of the general U.S. population.

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Rather than trying to eradicate Afghanistan’s opium poppy crop, Western governments should buy out farmers and use the raw materials to create morphine drugs to ease pain among the world’s poor, some experts say.

The New York Times reported Oct. 14 that advocates point to reports showing that 6.2 million people worldwide lack proper pain medication for cancer, AIDS, burns, and wounds. The U.K.-based Senlis Council estimates that the entire annual opium crop in Afghanistan could be purchased for $600 million, whereas the U.S. and Britain are spending more than $800 million — and risking soldiers’ lives — trying to wipe out the crop.

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Pushing an antidrug strategy rejected in Colombia, the U.S. wants the Afghan government to go along with a plan to spray the nation’s illicit poppy fields with herbicides.

The Telegraph reported Oct. 10 that the collapse of a British-led law-enforcement campaign and another record opium harvest have the U.S. urging the Afghan government to approve spraying the poppies with the herbicide “glyphosate.” The campaign has earned U.S. Ambassador William B. Wood — who has offered to have himself sprayed with the chemical to demonstrate its safety — the nickname “Chemical Bill.”

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