Opium gold unites US friends and foes

The Asia Times has this report on smuggling:

Drug smugglers call it the golden route: from Afghanistan into Pakistan and then into eastern Iran, it's the trail that takes Afghanistan's abundant opium, and its derivative, heroin, to Western markets.

And all along the way there is strong political compromise in

which officials turn a blind eye to the players visibly plying the notorious route, and at each stage the commissions get bigger.