Absolutely, some of the poppy crops may well end up in cheap pharmaceuticals, but it's helpful to know about Tasmania on the one hand, and the enormous drug profits laundered in Western markets on the other. Lots of it goes to and through Russia and Iran. Iran has a big problem with heroin addicts, btw. There is a lot of motive for and a lot of money to be made in the drug trade.

I know of a story where a regional leader intercepted a drug shipment. He was subsequently threatened by Karzai's brother: return the merchandise, or die.

About that move, yeah, I also know that Dutch investors try to get Afghan poppy farmers to cultivate saffron instead of poppy crops, and this effort is then symbolically supported by the Dutch parliament. We have troops in Uruzgan, an acquaintance of mine is currently doing his second tour of duty as a medic. (He's been busy the last few months.)

But..you know, these efforts indeed seem symbolic and Helmand is still harvesting poppy like mad. The general cover story seems to be: if you mess with the poppy crops, you mess with the livelihood of people you want on your side. This was also explicitly said by German military. They just don't seem to want to even involve themselves with poppy harvesting. All these NATO troops have a "hands off" policy.

Drugs may well be one of the motives for invading Afghanistan. The CIA sometimes funds black op projects with narcotics, a lot of drug related money laundering goes on at Wall Street. The main motive for invading Afghanistan is grabbing access to natural resources from the Russians and the Chinese, but, as always, geopolitical intervention is a multi-pronged strategy. I always think of geopolitical intervention as a result of a supercomputer calculating the most beneficial strategic action, yielding the biggest number of positive results in different areas (Israel, China, Russia, oil, drugs, regime change) given multiple parameters and interests. I really think the Pentagon uses complex decision making systems for this end.

Quotes such as (from the interesting link you gave):

Today, it's Afghanistan. Ongoing attempts by the United States to obliterate the poppy fields of that embattled land have been a fiasco. Afghan fields now supply the opium for 92 per cent of the global heroin trade.

(...)

Chief among them is the Senlis Council, an international policy think-tank with offices in London, Paris, Kabul and, as of this month, Ottawa.

It says that legitimizing the poppy crop is the only feasible solution to Afghanistan's drug crisis. Licensing not only would cut out the drug-lord insurgents, but also correct the shortfall in painkilling medicines available to the developing world.

Faced last month with an opiates shortage in the United Kingdom, the British Medical Association surprised many by calling for an investigation into the idea: "We should be looking at this and saying how can we convert it (opium) from being an illicit crop to a legal crop that is medicinally useful?"

Even Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff got in on the act. Last week, he told a military audience in Ottawa that he had "stress-tested" the Senlis proposal and thinks Canada should spearhead an international effort to license Afghan poppy fields.

Washington, however, remains implacably opposed, saying complete eradication, no matter how long it takes, is the only acceptable outcome.

...really reveal the ambiguity. Washington claims to desire complete eradication, but is doing little to back up their hollow rhetoric with action. Really Obama-esque, I would say, so I expect this practice to continue...I mean..how can you have "ongoing efforts to obliterate" and at the same time exploding opium production? The White House seems to be spinning the facts.