Afghanistan grapples with drug problem

Last year, President Obama reconsidered some of the assumptions of the counterinsurgency strategy but he forgot to reconsider fighting against drugs. He conceded the perilousness of Taliban and insurgency but he neglected to consider that Afghanistan has a silent and devastating enemy which is drug.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, until March 2008, about 1 million of Afghanistan's 34 million people were drug users, and the majority of these lived in the country's principal cities, based on UNODC estimation.


Map of Afghanistan showing major poppy fields and intensity of conflict 2007-08Today, with an estimation, two million Afghans struggling with drug addiction. Even different source offers that there are more than two million drug users in the country. Just in two years, the number of dug users doubled.

It is important for for the US and the world communities to reconsider the assumption of the counter-narcotic as a pivotal Afghan problem . Today, most of young Afghans don't have job and they suffering from different kinds of mental pressures. Needless to say, some of those youngsters join to Taliban.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime just announced that in 2010 Afghanistan is leading hashish producer. UN suggests that "it estimates that 10,000 to 24,000 hectares (24,700 to 59,300 acres) of cannabis are grown in Afghanistan every year and that this is used to make an estimated 1,500 to 3,500 tons of hashish annually." This is another double problem. Anyway, recently, I made a short interview with a website called "All Treatment." Read the interview on this link...

Drugs: Afghanistan's Silent Enemy

I just published a picture of an addict on my Photography website who I met in the abandoned Russian Cultural Center in Kabul. In the winter of 2008, I was assigned by UNAMA to picture the life of drug addicts in Kabul. I lived two streets away from the area where the addicts congregated during the cold winter. I passed by the wreckage of the building every day. One day, as I walked through the snow, mud and debris adjacent to the building, I found a dead body lying in the snow. Read more...

Drug Addiction in Afghanistan

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A young man who was repatriated from Turkey while he was intend to cross the border to reach Europe. After spending several months in prison in Turkey he repatriated to Iran border and Iranian police border caught him and put him jail. After 6 months he repatriated to Afghanistan. He became addicted in Iran and now he is in Russian Cultural Palace among hundreds of other addicts who wriggling with their wounded bodies in the darkness of corridors. These addicts who are staying inside the Russian Cultural Palace told that they became addict while they were in Iran and working.

According to the most recent UN figures in 2005, there are about one million addicts in a country of about 30 million people, one in 30 Afghans are addicts.

Afghan Drug User

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Afghan addict inside destroyed building of Russian Cultural Place in Kabul.
The number of opium addicts in Kabul alone was more than 30,000 in estimation in 2004 but three years after, this number doubled. For the last years the most of the beggars were among people left from civil war, children, widows and homeless people but recently the drug users took the place. Opium users regularly have financial difficulties they are begging to streets; in many cases they are commit crime.

In Kabul, where the medical services are primitive, massively overstretched and entirely unprepared for dealing with addicts, the Nejat centre offers a unique, residential treatment program.

The problem of addiction exists in all layers of society. Both men and women are affected. Local residents and returning refugees from Iran and Pakistan use opium mainly to alleviate medical conditions such as tuberculosis, colds and asthma. It is also reported that young children receive opium as a painkiller. Some addicts recognize they are addicted and seek assistance; many others are thrown out by their families or communities, who regard drug addicts as morally degenerate

There are various ways to consume opium. In Kabul, the most common technique is to smoke it though a cigarette, a water pipe, or though a 'shekhi shang'. The latter method involves using a heated metal blade covered with opium. The resulting fumes are then inhaled through a tube. However, many users consume opium orally, or use it to make tea.
Opium users buying one gram heroin in about Afg 50-100 ($1-2USD) for only single day, they are also use injections.

For more please read here