In a detailed 2014 Rolling Stone magazine article titled “Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State,” the author recounts a visit with an Afghan opium farmer during which he sees the harvest: a soccer ball-sized container of opium weighing about 10 pounds.

The ball would earn the farmer about $600. Once processed into heroin and sold illegally on the streets of western European cities, it would, however, bring some $150,000, author Matthieu Aikins estimated. Aikins muses: “A future hundred grand sitting in the living room of a guy who doesn’t have plumbing, electricity or furniture. Someone between him and that junkie is clearly making a killing.”

More likely the heroin trade is lucrative for a whole series of someones. At either end of the chain, however, are two victims: an Afghan farmer struggling to survive and a person risking his or her life because of addiction.

Jim Spellman, a former educator who lives in Groton, tirelessly dedicates his energy and time to seeking meaningful assistance for those at one end of the addiction chain. He also understands the plight of those at the other extreme of the heroin trade, in fact calling them the poorest of the Afghan poor.

So, it is baffling that Spellman plans a misguided and dangerous trip to Afghanistan in the fall or winter to view and gather facts about the poppy fields that are the source of the bulk of the world’s heroin and that he contends must be eliminated to stem the U.S. heroin epidemic. Heather Somers, the Republican candidate for the 18th District state senatorial seat who, with Spellman, formed the group Shine a Light on Heroin, intends to join Spellman. While Spellman travels the countryside, she will remain in Kabul to assist a medical team helping wounded hospitalized children there.

In an op-ed piece published in The Day in June, Spellman wrote this about Afghan poppy farming: “It is abominable that such harm is caused by nations that the U.S. either militarily occupies and/or assists with Foreign Aid. Whether by political and economic sanctions or militarily fire bombing, those poppy fields must cease to exist and be kept from returning.”

Spellman is dedicated to fighting heroin addiction, so his reasons for this trip are, no doubt, well-intentioned. But this is a foolhardy and naïve mission. The political and economic realities giving rise to the tremendous increase in Afghan poppy production for some 40 years have entangled the world’s superpowers, which also share a healthy dose of the blame for the conditions allowing for the increased opium production. If military might, hundreds of millions of dollars in financial assistance and countless teams of humanitarian organizations have been bedeviled by the complexities of Afghanistan, what could a single person with no experience in that war-torn nation realistically accomplish?

Besides the slim hope for Spellman’s venture to effect change, Afghanistan also poses real dangers for travelers. The State Department warns U.S. citizens against travel to Afghanistan, saying, “Travel to all areas of Afghanistan remains unsafe due to the ongoing risk of kidnapping, hostage taking, military combat operations, landmines, banditry, armed rivalry between political and tribal groups, militant attacks, direct and indirect fire, suicide bombings and insurgent attacks, including attacks using vehicle-borne or other improvised explosive devices.”

On Spellman’s Facebook page, where he is daily posting about his mission to travel to Afghanistan, he recently said he understands the danger and expects no intervention or aid. But is it realistic to believe there would be no U.S. intervention on his behalf should he be kidnapped or injured?

We believe Spellman is blinded to the realities of this so-called mission. He should call off this trip, cancel his online fundraising quest and turn his attention to much more potentially productive ways to stanch the heroin epidemic within the U.S. borders. Spellman said eliminating the poppy fields will eliminate the glut of U.S. heroin, but eliminating the U.S. demand for heroin also would affect the supply. Using his considerable energy to work for more effective drug laws, more plentiful treatment options, better understanding of the plight of addiction and more effective regulatory procedures right here in Connecticut is much more likely to reap benefits than a trip to the other side of the world.