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| Afghanistan |
| Opium takes over entire Afghan families, villages |
| 2009-08-09 |
| In dozens of mountain hamlets in this remote corner of Afghanistan, opium addiction has become so entrenched that whole families — from toddlers to old men — are addicts. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #7 Bottom line is that opium has probably been available in Afghanistan for at least 1000 years. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2009-08-09 22:35 |
| #6 In Afghanistan, opium has been available for centuries Opium has been available in China for 1300 years. The Chinese only started noticing that some people were opium addicts after they started running trade deficits with the West. The problem wasn't opium addiction per se - it was addiction to an imported product. They then made a show of banning opium products - by burning Western imports, even as opium remained widely available (probably from domestic sources) in China. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2009-08-09 22:34 |
| #5 Precisely. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2009-08-09 20:34 |
| #4 It's probably been the situation for centuries, it's just that now reporters have noticed. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-08-09 20:07 |
| #3 Hmmm, let's see. They grow it to sell, and use it themselves, with detrimental results. Am I supposed to care about them? Let them die. One bright spot; they should be less, ahh, 'adept' at making and planting IED's. Result might be more work accidents, a definite upside there. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2009-08-09 16:30 |
| #2 this was interesting: Iran immediately to the west has the world's highest per capita heroin use. The heroin labs there, as well as in Pakistan to the east, use opium imported from Afghanistan. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-08-09 16:09 |
| #1 Health workers say that to treat the addiction, they need to treat the entire community. Last year, the Ministry of Health took 120 addicts from Sarab to a facility in a town one day's drive away to be treated. Three months later, they found that 115 of the 120 had relapsed The only solution is to remove the drug availability. The dreaded War On Drugs. In Afghanistan, opium has been available for centuries, why now, the addiction crisis? Breakdown in tribal society? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-08-09 16:04 |