Drug addiction - big problem of Afghan govt

KABUL - A polluted area of what used to be the free-flowing Kabul River is now home to thousands of drug addicts in this capital city, a situation that has compounded the problems of the Afghan central government now being plagued with the continuing threat from armed groups, particularly from the Taliban.

"Since I have been rejected by everyone in society, Kabul River is my only place of refuge," Azam Gul, a long-time drug dependent, told Xinhua while inhaling his drug-filled cigarette.

Wearing tattered clothes, disheveled and physically too weak to walk, Gul said that taking drug is the only way to ease the pain in his body.

"I can read and write but because of bad fortune and injustice in society I could not find employment to support my family," the shaking Gul said.

Gul, who is in his twenties, is not alone in this kind of misfortune. In the dried up portion of the banks of the Kabul River, hundreds of other drug dependents converged near the Murad Khani area, which is just half a kilometer away from the presidential palace.  

According to officials, there are now more than 1 million Afghans, aged 15 to 64, who are addicted to heroin and other drugs, and the number would go up if the status quo would remain unchecked.

The country's high rate of unemployment, extreme poverty, depression, illiteracy and the effects of the protracted conflicts and fighting are the most common causes of drug addiction, according to Mohammad Tahir Sultani, head of a drug addicts' hospital in Kabul.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium poppies, accounting for 90 percent of the world's supply. Opium poppy is the raw material in the manufacture of heroin.

Mohammad Nabi, a concerned Afghan, said that the government is not doing enough to treat or rehabilitate drug addicts. "It is a big social problem that our country is facing," he said. 

Nabi said it is an open secret in Kabul that some powerful figures are behind drug production and trafficking.

"The poor addicts deserve assistance and medical treatment by the government," Nabi said, adding that the government should exert efforts in solving this problem and not just concentrate in fighting terrorism and the insurgents.

Although the Afghan government has announced that 20 out of the country's 34 provinces are now poppy-free, still the plant is largely cultivated in insecure areas like Kandahar and Helmand provinces where the Taliban militants are active.

There are reports that the Taliban is behind large-scale production of heroin, the proceeds of which are used to buy arms in fighting the Afghan government.

Aside from the Taliban, warlords in some provinces are also involved in the highly-profitable drug trade.