Afghanistan's booming heroin trade leaves trail of addiction at home - thegaurdian

Afghanistan

For a decade, the office of the British Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand was busy dispersing hundreds of millions of aid dollars across the province.

Now, the base is barren; stripped of everything of value. Occasional moans reverberate down the corridors where gaunt-looking men sleep, belly-down, seeking respite from the sun beating through the windows. All of them are recovering drug addicts.

In one room, an elderly man tumbled off his bunk. “Allah, Allah,” Mohammad Rahim mutters, flapping his arms and legs about as if doing snow angels on the dusty concrete floor. He is fighting through second-day heroin withdrawal.

“We all felt like this when we came,” says his roommate, Khairullah.

Afghanistan is the world’s leading producer of opium and heroin. This year, its opium production hit a new record high, rising 87% compared to 2016, according to statistics from the UN. The increase is largely due to a rapid expansion of territory used to cultivate poppy, following advances by the Taliban who both promote and profit from the crop.

Its production leaves behind a trail of addiction. Although most drugs are smuggled abroad, there are between 1.3 million and 1.6 million drug users in Afghanistan, the UN estimates.

Treatment, though, is poor. In Helmand, where half the country’s poppies grow and where unemployment and poverty perpetuate the temptation of readily available drugs, the government offers only 70 spots at two rehabilitation clinics.

“This is a chronic disease, just like cancer,” says Dr Ajmal Fazli, director of a 20-bed clinic.

The treatment on offer is 40 days of cold turkey. Emotional comfort is found in a sort of brotherhood of fellow addicts. The sole entertainment is a small television in front of two plastic chairs. - Read More

Afghanistan's booming heroin trade leaves trail of addiction at home ...