Cultivation and Use of Opium in Rural India: Bottom-Up Insights Into Anti-Drug Efforts

Although India is a major supplier of licit (i.e., legally grown) opium, it is also a leading producer of illicit (i.e., illegally grown) opium. To learn who might be involved in both types of production, the researchers interviewed 50 licensed opium farmers in Madhya Pradesh. Those interviews covered, among other aspects, farmers’ opium use, community attitudes towards addiction and trafficking, and knowledge of government-set opium prices and regulations. In general, some of those interviewed outlined both informal social controls and shunning, used against rural addicts, and support, even if grudgingly given, for government regulation. Those same interviews, however, revealed evidence of important social/economic changes that are undercutting the limited efficacy of extant formal controls in curtailing opium use, addiction, and trafficking.     

The rational voter paradox revisited

The rational voter paradox rests on two fundamental assumptions. First, that voters are risk neutral. Second, that voters make decisive vote computations. The implications of maximizing the expected utility of wealth rather than the utility of expected wealth are explored. The validity of decisive vote computations are examined through concepts of weak and strict in the limit free rider assumptions. The paper proposes a margin of victory model of voting behavior based on information levels and the political division of labor.