Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Episode 419: Afghan Dope (Patreon)

Published:
2024-11-18 13:54:31
Edited:
2024-11-18 21:11:19
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

We’re joined by investigative reporter Seth Harp to talk Afghan poppies, narco states, and drug interventions of the past and future.

See also: Episode 149: Bengaetzi

Files

Comments

RedJon

Foist!

Ryan Fox

Have a wonderful day everyone

Noah

I’m smoking on that afghan pack

lin hou

Seth Harp is one of my favorite guests. My Monday just got better!

Peter Boardman

‘Drugs are bad mmmm, ok?’ - South Park guy

will michel

this one has all the makings of a classico style trueanon

sleepyjed

I hope everyone has a blessed day

Mango Bolsonaro

Smoking on that rare Afghan Pack to this one 🤪

jer

First

Tom Clarke

Not trying to be funny but I was first, only I didn't comment because I didn't feel the need. On further consideration, I now think that I should have done.

NYCM&AHole

::slaps inside of wrist:: hell yes, folks!

RedJon

I have never, nor will ever care, about anything you do

RedJon

Feist

Egg B

Would buy a TrueAnon challenge coin

Taz

In 2010 heroin was EVERYWHERE in North Carolina. I seen an eight ball at McDonald's before I had my first kiss! Cannot stress how the market was absolutely flooded

Your Mum

The rfk pussy joke had me actually laughing out loud!

Geronimo

Let’s fucking go Seth harp is great

m

seth is one of my fave repeat guests. can’t wait to listen.

Blank

We may be in hell timeline but at least we’re in one where brace survived that Sears bathroom 💗

pizzapope

fantastic episode, looking forward to more books from the true anon publishing pipeline

Ty

I wouldn’t be disappointed if you had Seth on twice a month love that guy

Taz

Always tar. No exceptions

John Lemieux

If I learned anything it’s that the countryside surrounds the city

farmrob

Partners and allies bit was great, easily the best joke I've heard from rivers stonedge

PineBat Jo

I lost an uncle to fentanyl. He was a nurse and got addicted to opiates. I wish I could make my family listen to this ep. Maybe they wouldn’t be such die hard Christo-Fascists if they knew the American military facilitated the trade of heroin.

Tim O'

Seth is a great guest. Very pleased to see him back.

Chairman Corn

First act of the workday is to shit on the clock and turn on true anon baby.

John Harwood

Great ep. Good luck to Liz on kicking the habit but also with writing The Basketball Diaries II.

Jes

Damn attacked off the jump with my millennial urge to consume as much orange wine as possible on a weekly basis

K H

59:23 He says they do not count seizures ABOVE $200? Did he mean LESS than? If not, 100% a cover-up

GG Allin Dulles

The only thing the US military loves more than getting guys you went to high school with who grew up poor and joined the army killed in the middle east is getting ones who didn't join the army killed in their economically depressed home towns

John Lemieux

That’s crazy that Liz chose to title her memoir “my struggle.”

Clean Shirt Piggie

Listen to Bengaetzi Ep. Liz says Gaetz was member of the “Raucous Caucus”

B

srsly looking forward to Seth’s book partners and allies gave a hearty chuckle

Sam

The tar I did had a pungent vinegary smell 🤢.

T

My family members have to deal with meth psychos all the time and all I want is for heroin to flood the streets and put meth out of business.

Return of The Mac 2nite

“China is an Ethnostate” my brother in Allah, America has been directly sponsoring an ethnic cleansing for over a year now

Ry Guy

fresno mentioned 🥲

Kamran Husain

changing my race to alleged Mexican white

ploob

Hey sometimes you gotta spend 3 trillion dollars to make 1 trillion dollars

Brian Long

Confirmation joke 💯 Lolol

Nico

ff to 10:10 is where the ep actually starts

ananymous

i understand this isn’t the china defense podcast but hearing them let that slide without comment or cutting it bc it’s unnecessary is a bit concerning. China is definitely not an ethnostate

Jabroni Ludd

would love to see a convo between Seth Harp and Matthew Cole and Trevor Paglen about the cross sections of the military/jsoc deep state

Robert Sayre

People love to mention that Afghanistan / China border, but it's misleading. They just got a basic road finished in July 2024 on the Afghan side. The Chinese side is a military area, and the lowest elevation crossing is 16000ft. Look for "Wakhjir Pass" on Wikipedia--many links if you're curious. There are rumors of some drug smuggling, but it would have been low-volume yak caravans. The reason the border is there is because there are huge mountains, pretty much.

CJ

ONE guy had China white in the mission in 2013. Smoked it and immediately passed out. Looking back, it was probably fent? Who can say. Bad times!

snapplepeachtea

have y'all ever seen the Al Jazeera doc on drug rehab centers in Afghanistan. visually you're presented with emaciated, shaved men wearing the same jumpsuits, in El-Salvadoran prison style housing. no judgement but understandable to think it's an internment camp upon first glance lol

Michael S. Judge

If you're a junkie, dog, alcoves are the spot

Phillip Harris

Ladies & Gentlemen: The Joe Rogan of the Left: Brace BELDEN!

snapplepeachtea

I think any country that's 90+% the same ethnicity is functionally an ethnostate, even if it's not as obvious as israel

Ian H

Hamid Karzai's other brother Qayum owned a genuinely good Afghan restaurant in Baltimore called Helmand. Great food, but I always wondered how much dope money that place must have laundered.

T Sur

Still there. It is delicious.

Brian Ward

20% of the worlds population is Chinese, are we living in an ethnoglobe?

Sean

what was the name that Seth dropped when they were discussing the implications of US funding an Afghan narco state for 20 years and coming to your own conclusions? Max something?

c

brace's lived experiences are valid. period

Robert Karchnyak

That’s the definition of ethnostate. The term doesn’t concern itself with how that’s achieved. 91% is Han Chinese, so ethnostate. The Faroe Islands would also be an ethnostate, if one ignores its relationship with Denmark. Obviously, I’m not trying to be pedantic but accuracy in all these discussions are important. Side note, my good friend died of an overdose back in 2020. All the heroin he ever had was powdered. I felt that same kind of rage Brace was feeling. I knew too many people who died or are no longer who they were. I’m lucky I stayed away from shit.

Return of The Mac 2nite

Sandra the conclusion of your reasoning is eugenic in every feasible scenario.

rutjake

We love a Seth episode! Sethpisode?

Lu

Keep the norm bit

Axel H.

I think the issue here is that “ethnostate” isn’t simply used to mean “there is a majority ethnicity”, it implies a type of ruling structure where one ethnicity is elevated above others and that structure is designed to benefit that ethnicity alone.

b2b saas purveyor

real. from '02 on it was insanely easy to get dope around Greensboro. usually light brown powder for me

This is how Janis Joplin feels

I heard Michael Rupert speak after 9/11 and his whole thing was that they invaded Afghanistan to gain control of the heroin trade and then used the profits to keep the US stock market afloat. Nice guy

Eric U

Hello I am dumb as hell. Can someone help connect the dots more explicitly on how the US letting the heroin trade in Afghanistan flourish benefitted them?

Doug Cartel

Remember how afghan heroin was a plot point in Super Troopers

Tim O'

You know it's supporting the CIA when there's a picture of a chimp showing its ass on the package

Tim O'

Poo Anon 🔥🔥🔥

Sai

So roughly the pattern is drug trade funds anti communist forces in imperial periphery on behalf of US imperial interests. So is this happening in Mexico? I know labor is much stronger in Mexico as a political force, are the cartels entwined with US intelligence to suppress the labor movement down there?

Jack

Three explanations, from least to most conspiratorial: 1. The Narcos dominated Northern Alliance was the established anti-Taliban force, so we backed them diplomatically and militarily, giving them free reign to expand the drug trade. 2. The CIA deliberately aided the drug trade to acquire money for use in covert operations. 3. The CIA deliberately aided the drug trade to suppress minorities and the US working class.

A Gee Cook

I think calling it a chemical weapon is spot on. Which makes me think…was it was used on Americans deliberately? and why?

Jeremy

Actually need Liz to write a book it doesn’t matter what it’s about

Jawn Feddermang

I tried to get AI to generate images of YC as ‘liberal Joe Rogan’ but it just sent back ones of me at Diddy freak-offs

jay alan

Great ep! 😎

Logan

China is NOT an ethnostate

Shiv

also wondering this!

Shiv

i enjoyed it a great deal

Logan

@Sandra @Robert Maybe learn what an ethnostate is

buttface

1. "Substance farmers" 2. "ISIS Ketamine" 3. PLEASE do an episode on the China/Uyghur situation (or lack thereof?)

B

wild how much this sounds like a preview for blowback season 19 lol

K H

Brace is a Moist so....

K H

It hella seems like it.

K H

While we are calling for episodes on fake shit, what about that supposed massacre by Vietcong using flamethrowers on some Vietnamese town.

K H

It can be both.

buttface

a moist what?

Goldie

Had to hit a meeting after listening.

Ant koz

I believe the reason American intelligence and government were able to obfuscate reality with their assertion that zero percent of American heroin came from Afghanistan while it was supplying over 90% of world supply and while they happened to be occupying them for 20 years comes from an additional step in the heroin production process. Traditionally Afghani heroin (#3) is one step less processed than Mexican powder heroin (#4) .. think powdered cocaine vs crack cocaine .. but the afghan number 3 heroin that is typically found in European markets is often smoked because to inject it you have to cook it with acid (typically citrus) to make it water soluable and therefore injectable. “Mexican” #4 is processed one step further into a salt, where you simply need to mix it with water to inject it. This is where the whole “cooking” heroin seen in movies comes from, European Afghan dope, but I injected powder heroin across probably a dozen states in America and never once had to cook dope, simply mixed it with water in Gatorade caps or some equivalent, pull it into the syringe through a cotton ball ripped out of a cigarette filter and good to go…. A lot of ‘know it all’ junkies on the internet insist that no American dope WAS afghan, but like brace said I think it is likely that American intelligence or military ops trafficked it to Mexico so that it could be further processed into the #4 heroin American markets are used to. It’s likely to me that mostly the tar in the southwest came from Mexican poppies, and all the powdered dope in the south, Midwest, east coast, in those traditional trafficking centers of nyc, det, atl, etc was further processed in Mexico but that the poppies were grown in Afghanistan. There is just no way it’s a coincidence that after 20 years of occupation, we left, and the heroin supply to America STOPPED. That’s the one issue I have with this episode is that y’all leave out what happened to drug markets after afghani production stopped. There is essentially ZERO heroin on the street markets in America anymore (besides tar in the southwest) .. powdered heroin has been completely replaced with dangerous powerful fentanyl analogs. As far as I can tell the only powdered heroin available in America comes from boutique dark web dealers. I work in harm reduction and mental health in west baltimore, a city with notoriously deep heroin trafficking ties, and I work directly with addicts daily who have told me for years that they have not even seen heroin since well before I came around, many years. This is almost entirely true across all of the states and again, it’s no coincidence that heroin disappears from American markets at the same time that the Taliban cut off over 90% of poppy production in Afghanistan and therefore the world. Thanks for episode, love youz

Ant koz

My partner went with our new neighbor last week and brought me leftovers it was great

AKorgar

Yeah, caught that too

Ian H

I also find the argument silly, because even if it was true it wouldn't really matter. If Afghan product was flooding the whole world outside the U.S. (wildly implausible but whatever), all the SE Asian and Mexican dope would go to the unserved market and you'd get the same price fall/availability surge regardless.

Ian H

Anyone else remember when Biden ran in 2020 on ending mass incarceration by diverting drug criminals out of jail's/prisons and into "mandatory rehab"? To which they'd be sentenced for a set term. And not allowed to leave.

Ant koz

Totally indeed

AKorgar

Yeah I mean rising tide lifts all boats (or dope)

N

I do wish he wouldn't opine on China despite him admitting he doesn't know anything lol. Calling China an 'ethnostate' is actually crazy lmao

🔻

Lol

Mikachu

is episode 420 gonna be about weed?

Robin Palmer

Love when Liz gets to read Brace’s writing. I still think about the ‘is it better to be dope, or to be fire’ poem. Liz trying to find the correct beat to read “Bugatti, sex worker…” is an all time True anon moment for me.

taejo-pom

Our country does fkking suck

Michael Ouderkirk

Is the vegan restaurant Land of Kush still around? Odd that Baltimore had two restaurants named after drug cultivation hot spots.

Goldie

Sex work-errr

Ian H

I believe it is. When I was vegan on the Eastern Shore I used to go there or Red Emma's when visiting the city.

SwagMasta420

If you read nothing but the economist, radio free Asia, NYT, and the Epoch Times then yeah it might hella seem like it 👶🧠

Matelda

If anything, they're going to invade Mexico to do regime change against Sheinbaum, but say it's because of the cartels

SwagMasta420

"Americans would not buy a war on Mexico, they have Facebook" -Guy who buys a war on China

Alexandria

Loomis for Trump Cabinet!

I am become reply guy

If one could see the course of American history and the soul of this country with total clarity for even a second they would be driven insane, like witnessing some ancient eldritch being.

Jack Paul

Am I the only one confused by someone saying China is an ethnostate? I’ve literally never heard that. In what way, I am genuinely curious.

CT

Dreamland by Ray Quinones is a great read on how Black Tar Heroin was being made in Jalisco Mexico, and the overlaps and dovetails it had with the rise and fall of Oxy’s in rural and rust belt America. Doesn’t really explain the gov’t’s line on there being no Afghan dope in the states, ( as a Philadelphian, I can assure you Philly had the best powdered dope on the East Coast in the 90’s and Aughts), while clearly in at least the NE of the country there was PLENTIFUL amounts of powdered dope. I don’t recall ever hearing about tar usage in this area at the time. Obviously it’s all fent and tranq now

CT

Aaaaaand I just got to the part where the guest is talking about this very book. My bad, SAM Quinones. ( Kin-yo-nays),

Tim O'

The senator from Massachusetts?!

Jake Torrey

China basically wants everyone to be Han Chinese. They don't even acknowledge that Cantonese is a different language. Officially it's just a dialect of Mandarin.

Jack Paul

I wouldn’t say America is an ethnostate because of systemic institutional racism. I don’t know what acknowledging the language issue you claim makes it an ethnostate.

Jack

For most of the last few thousand years Chinese empire/civilization has been a Han-domination system. Now PRC is a Han-dominated nation-state. Many people would argue it still retains a lot of the same Han-supremacy and Confuscianist culture that dominated for 2000 years. Frankly I myself have no idea how I would come to know if China is currently a Han ethnostate or to what extent Confuscianist ideology holds sway today in modern China. But some people here have strong opinions about it. I can say the general trend has been rough for ethnically and geographically peripheral peasants and nomads for the last few thousand year. I can only hope that China is finding ways to buck that trend.

Selecao9

I think they just mean: “China is racist.”

peyton

make dope heroin again

Allie S-M

Good ep but he is completely wrong about China being an enthnostate. People in minority regions / provinces are still taught their language in schools and are free to express their religion and culture. For as much as you correctly point out that many westerners don’t understand Afghanistan and rely on laundered imperial talking points, be careful that you do not do the same. Look up Carl Zha, he talks about this stuff and I’ve learned a lot from him.

Selecao9

Thank you for explaining this!!

Hot Rod

They’ve got the Shen Yun eps

K H

Are other ethnicities represented in their government at all?

Cameron Young

A grim episode From a stellar reporter Gotta get that book.

K H

You know what.

Kyle Palmer

That's a haiku if you move "from" to the second line

HK

Need advice: walked past a neighbor in a True Anon shirt what should I say to them next time they run out of clothes?

Quinn

I have a friend from college who is actually named River Stone so the intro made me laugh lol

einbert

"China doesnt support civil rights the way that we do." Yeah thats probably a good thing lmao. The united states is a white supremacist ethnostate. Please dont trash talk China if one doesnt know what theyre talking about. It doesnt help. Just assuming that US CIA talking points about Uyghurs is not good enough. Those talking points have been debunked many times. The professor Asatar Bair probably has one of the best debunkings of this. Please--no investigation, no right to speak.

einbert

They havent investigated the issue. Unfortunately too many on the left are more than happy to accept CIA talking points about the PRC without the slightest bit of skepticism.

Jime Time

Yung Chomsky does it again! Solid (Snake) work with the Metal Gear Solid sound byte 😂

abby

Has anyone done the deep dive as to how the taliban banning cultivation in 2020-2021 is related to the astronomical increase in fentanyl and analogues present in the street supply dating from approximately the same time? Maybe not all that deep a dive is even needed but I do wonder

Selecao9

Engage with them while pretending to misunderstand it as a Qanon shirt.

Henry Ermer

Dostum is as ruthless and contemptible as a person can be (murdered his wife and had to flee the country as vice president for having an elder gang raped) but nobody mentions that the shipping container slaughter was a reprisal for a 3 day Hazara focused massacre in Mazar-e Sharif conducted by the Taliban. Shipping container mass killings were done by Hizb-e hazara and the Taliban during that period as well. Obviously its indefense but I think personalizing it to Dostum loses the forest for the trees on how horrific this conflict was

Matthew

Great episode. Seth is in the pantheon of great guests. More like this please

Zachary White

Seth says the Taliban had eliminated poppy production months before 9/11, he said that on Breaking Points too and I was like ????? I know there’s a Peter Dale Scott book on this topic, but would have liked to hear him say more about that. Just a spooky coincidence?

Pelican Grief

Call me Lydia Tar the way I had to go to China for being white

Hot Rod

Great ep - too bad we didn’t have Noah and Brendan from Blowback too.

Damien

No mention of historical fiction film starring Jake Gyllenhaal "The Covenant" which touches on the topic

Jeremy Logan

I sold heroin and was a junky around the time brace was using. The cartel literally wouldn't allow you to sell powder heroin in weight. You could definitely get away with it un small amounts but everyone around Seattle it wasn't allowed. We also had the worst heroin on the west coast and that was rumored to be because of the dope that killed Layne Stanley and several other people. Who knows if that's true but it is funny.

Jeremy Logan

I would assume it became cheaper to buy from Afghanistan than to process it yourself

Jeremy Logan

Another thing about white powder coming from Mexico. Around 2010 or 2011 the heroin changed completely. It went from black tar to a hard brown crystallized rock. It was easier for the oxygen heads to smoke so it became popular fast

Dan Young

Ikimmininmjnkjmiii8 II iiiii

gatito

unless his name is spelled quiñones it would just be pronounced ki-no-neys but on a real note that sounds super interesting

Blank

Looking back at this I couldn’t tell—was the implication that pharma companies were buying this stuff? Or solely that it was coming in as street drugs?

buttface

this is a movie-free podcast

buttface

yeah, really shit take from an otherwise great guest.

Bobby Sandman

The latter I believe. Not sure if it’s this episode or another (I listened to all the Seth Harp episodes after this one dropped) but Brace mentioned that the vast majority of poppies grown for American pharmaceutical companies are located in Tanzania for some reason

Bobby Sandman

Hiya neighbor, you a China white or Mexican black tar kinda person?

DB

@Jake Torrey – I believe Mandarin and Cantonese are both viewed as dialects. In other words, one is not a dialect of the other, but rather they are both dialects of a common ancestor. Mandarin is just the more widely spoken and official language of the government.

Mikhail Komarov

I heard the difference between Tar and Afghan heroin was Acetic Anhydride makes #4 and Mexico can’t get that so they use Glacial Acetic Acid which produces Tar

Degrassi Knoll

I also nod out while typing but usually its only one letter x 1500. Respect the variety of characters.

Dan Young

Was in my pocket on a cycle.

Shfifty_five

*Tazmania* not Tanzania but yeah, it's a supply monopolization issue with crazy stringent regulations that keeps poppies grown outside of that single Angloid source from legitimate use, essentially ensuring the high prices of both drugs and naturally derived opiates as well as the ability to use poppies growing operations as justification for operations (SE Asia, Colombia, Southern Mexico etc).

Michael S. Judge

Even so, I find it pretty hard to believe that the pharma cartels who were printing money through the 1990s and early 2000s with synthetic opioids (another Nazi invention that could only truly flourish in the next Reich) would've entirely avoided the thing that was obviously going to replace their biggest moneymaker, and with zero oversight, testing, or need to hire thousands of reps to push the shit through individual doctors, one at a time. Whether it was directly via the pharma corporations themselves, I don't know – I tend to doubt it – but for the best-connected chunks of that shareholder class? Lots of whom come FROM the military, intelligence, or "straight" government worlds? They knew perfectly well what they were doing with Oxy & co., and what would replace it if anybody started caring. There's no moral difference between Afghan junk and what they were pushing already, and you don't have to pay taxes on your heroin profits. (They probably didn't pay taxes on the Oxy, either, but that would've required more billable hours for the accountants.)

D.Jay Oakes-Munro

Is it my imagination or is the US a narco state?

buttface

Very disappointed to hear the guest call China an ethnostate with no correction from Brace or Liz. Like what the actual fuck?

Waleed

#4 is powdered H… china white only refers to fent since like 2015

Mark Freeman

It kind of is though, although I suspect not fully by choice.

Drew

What's the name of the writer he mentions if you want to read about speculation of the "why" here? I couldn't quite make it out. Something Navarre?

Wyatt Denham

Is there an episode about fentanyl? If not I feel like it would make an interesting one.

Cointelbro

I think you’ll find it’s Sam Quinones and his book ‘Dreamland - The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic’

Drew

No that was a different moment. I have read that one

Drew

I wish I had written down the timestamp

Cointelbro

If you have Apple Podcasts, go to the episode there and you’ll see a transcript - perhaps that will help.

Rusty Shackleford

So late to the game on this one but my ears perked the fuck up when I heard Jerry Boykin’s name! Went to college where he was a professor and attended a talk in like 08/09 with him as well as General Sam Wilson, an old OSS / CIA guy. Someone asked about WMD’s not being in Iraq and Boykin shot back that there were, because they had weapons like bombs and machine guns that could kill a lot of people at once. It was such an unhinged comment that even Sam Wilson rolled his eyes. Damn, what a weird time. Anyway, Boykin is, as you’d expect, an absolute psycho.

jeuuro

Flat out wrong about China's attitude towards its ethnic minority groups. They have representation at the annual congress, they have accommodations. Wild uneducated opinion there

jeuuro

@KH Absolutely, the ethnic minorities are represented at the annual congress

Absolute Terror

The Wikipedia article on "opium production in Afghanistan" 2nd sentence states "as of 2021 Afghanistans harvest produces more than 90% of illicit heroin globally,..." it then continues its opening overview paragraph speaking of Afghanistan as the massive global leader of heroin production in present tense for the entire paragraph. Buried waaay down 75% of the way through the article is the statement that after 2022 the taliban reduced their production by at least 90%, and then acknowledges that actually they are no longer the leading producer. What shitty sneaky writing