I gue$$ drug addiction and abuse is part of the liberation from the Taliban:
"From 2005 to 2009, the use of opiates doubled.... In the last two years, opium cultivation has increased to the highest level since 2008"
Well, the New York Times must be smoking opium considering the memory lapses regarding U.S gardening operations all these years.
"Addiction ravaging Afghanistan called ‘a tsunami’" by Azam Ahmed | New York Times, November 03, 2013
ISLAM QALA, Afghanistan — “Sometimes I feel it is better to die than live like this,” said Haidar, 30, seated on the floor of his living room beside a small tin of sugarlike powder.
His family, a wife and young children, bore the gaunt faces of addiction as well.
In western Herat province, held up as an island of stability and progress in Afghanistan, the forlorn border town of Islam Qala is instead a showcase for an intensifying crisis: Long the global leader in opium production, Afghanistan has now also become one of the world’s most addicted societies.
All so the CIA can gain black profits for black budgets for black operations, and so banks can get rich laundering drug loot.
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The number of drug users in Afghanistan is estimated to be as high as 1.6 million, or about 5.3 percent of the population, among the highest rates in the world. Nationwide, 1 in 10 urban households has at least one drug user, according to a recent report from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. In the city of Herat, it is 1 in 5.
From 2005 to 2009, the use of opiates doubled, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, putting Afghanistan on par with Russia and Iran, and the number of heroin users jumped more than 140 percent. Most drug experts think the rate of drug use has increased since then.
Related: Heroin is Here
And now we know from where.
In a country troubled by adversity, from its long-running war to rampant corruption, drug addiction ranks low among national priorities.
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The focus of the international community and the Afghan government has instead been on reducing opium production. Since the beginning of the war in 2001, the Americans have spent more than $6 billion to curb Afghanistan’s opium industry, including eradication and alternative crop subsidies.
Eradication = chemical warfare
The effort has struggled, and in many areas eradication efforts have been unofficially abandoned as too costly in terms of lost public support for government.
I guess that's why it lost public support -- if it ever had any.
In the last two years, opium cultivation has increased to the highest level since 2008, as global demand and prices remain robust.
The sheer volume of supply has fueled domestic demand, a phenomenon the UN drug czar in Afghanistan refers to as “the Coca-Cola effect,” after the company’s market-saturation tactics.
Cementing the status quo is a lack of treatment options, like methadone substitution, or a holistic plan to address the crisis.
What is great about that is the same people who created this crisis are the ones complaining about lack of treatment. They get you coming and going: hook you up, then get money for treatment programs.
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While it has grown far worse in the past few years, the drug crisis in Afghanistan is not new. International health officials caught on early to the problem, which in some measure stemmed from the traditional use of opium for medication.
It's all medicine, man.
In fact, one of the earliest challenges Afghan security forces had to surmount was a public image as a band of opium-addled thieves.
The problem, while more controlled, still exists: Just last month, the nation’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, fired 65 employees after discovering that they were addicted to opium.
No wonder the local population trusts Taliban more!
In rural areas, the problem is expected to be worse. In some villages, the rate of drug use is as high as 30 percent of the population, based on hair, urine, and saliva samples taken by the authors of according to a recent report from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. And drugs not traditionally in wide use here, including crystal methamphetamine, are now figuring in the problem as well.
Oh, no. That stuff is even worse than heroin or opium!
--more--"
