Ronald Sandford (Letters, November 27) asks when opium crops in Afghanistan will be licensed for sale as painkillers to reduce the global shortage and end one cause of the war. That's a good question. The usual reply from the government is that Afghan farmers wouldn't accept the lower prices they'd get for painkillers compared to heroin.

However, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime found farmers only get about 20% of the sale price of their crops as heroin. So if they were offered a much higher percentage of the sale price of their crops as morphine, they'd actually be getting more money.

The Herald reported in September that the government has approved British farmers growing poppy crops to reduce the price of morphine for the NHS ("UK farmers allowed to cultivate poppies for morphine", September 3). So why not Afghans who rely on poppy-crop money for food?

Duncan McFarlane, Beanshields, Braidwood, Carluke.