Country Battles Terrorism, Poverty, Human Rights abuse and Now Wages War on Drugs

Afghanistan is the world's leading supplier of opium, the drug derived from a certain kind of poppy plant that is used to produce Heroin. Almost 10% of the Afghan population regularly uses opium or a derivative. One million Afghans between the ages of 15-64 are addicted to drugs.This figure has risen dramatically over the past few years. 

Afghan man smokes opium, a powerful narcotic drug

Afghanistan has been blanketed by poverty and that hardships it brings for many years. Because of the difficulty of day to day living many citizens seek escape, often this escape comes in the form of a cloud of smoke or an intravenous injection. The prevelance of drug addiction is astounding and due to the increase in IV users in many of the big cities the AIDS virus has also been on the rise. Beceause of the lack of medical care and the inability to pay for expensive drugs, Afghan citizens have no help to get off these highly addictive drugs.

Drug abuse runs rampant throughout the U.S., however in most cases individuals who seek help can usually recieve it, whether it is a drug that curbs cravings or a treatment facility, there are options for those who desire sobriety. Unfortunately in Afghanistan this is not the case. Dr. Zemaray Amin from the Medecins du Monde (MDM) health group says that due to lack of access to social programs and addiction counseling, those addicted to these drugs have no options. An international health group concerned with the increase in drug addiction worldwide has started a program in Afghanistan that hands out methadone to willing addicts. Methadone is a synthetic perscription drug mainly used to treat heroin addiction. Methadone works on the same receptos as morphine, blocking the desire for users to get high. Hopefully with the introduction of more methadone programs Afghan civilians will at least have the option to get off drugs.







Because Afghanistan exports and produces 90% of the world's opium, the issue of drugs in the country is not simply one of abuse and addiction, rather it is entangled in the web of government corruption and terrorism. Members of extremeist terrorist sects are often the ones controlling and growing the opium supply. Often these individuals have strong links to the Taliban and even sometimes government officials. These drug lords employ Afghan civilians to farm the opium crops, paying them little in comparision to the profit they rake in. American soliders have had the daunting tasks of finding the opium fields and setting fire to the plants, destroying tens of thousands of dollars worth of heroin producing plants. Similar to the situation in Mexico, the individuals at the helm of these large, million dollar drug rings terrorize civilians and create havoc.

Many women who suffer abuse at the hands of their husbands and male family members seek escape through drug use