TRADITIONAL HABIT NUMBS THE PAIN BUT WORSENS POVERTY

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Every day, from dawn until just after midnight,
Abdul Ghaffer leans over a loom, weaving the lush, geometric Turkoman
carpets that his family has made for generations. But Ghaffer says
part of the tradition -- using opium to ease the pain of the job --
will stop with him.

"When you eat opium, you don't become tired, and you can work late
into the night," says the tall, lean Afghan refugee with green eyes.
He has been off opium for a month, thanks to a drug-treatment center
at Khurasan camp near Peshawar. "But I won't ever go back to opium."

These programs are few and far between. But through education,
treatment, and sheer determination, a growing number of the Afghan
carpet weavers who have called Pakistan their temporary home may
finally be breaking the cycle of addiction.

It's a tradition so ingrained among northern Afghanistan's Turkomans
and Uzbeks that some families give their children opium as a form of
child care, to keep them passive while their parents work.

"Opium is a significant problem in the refugee camps," says Sifat
Khan, director of the Nijat Center at the Khurasan Camp.

The roots of the opium tradition among carpet weavers are sunk into
pure economics. Since carpet weavers get paid by the square meter,
they have an incentive to work long hours to finish a carpet and move
on to their next assignment. Ghaffer's family earns about 3,600 rupees
($60) weaving 3 square meters of carpet in a month. It takes three
family members, working from 8 a.m. until 1 a.m., with breaks for
meals and tea, of course.

Asked if he feels his labor should be better paid, Ghaffer says, "Why
not?" He smiles, and his teeth are orange and black from years of
chewing the resin from opium poppies. "But if I raise my price, the
carpet dealer will go to someone else who charges less. And then I
have no other option but to agree to the terms of the dealer. I have
to survive."

But even without such economic pressures, breaking a centuries-old
tradition is no small task. Aid workers like Khan say their greatest
success stories are among the very young, since it's easier to teach a
child alternatives to drugs than it is to persuade a lifelong addict
to break free of opium's grasp. The program in Khurasan camp combines
the classic one-two punch of medication and education. It's education
that seems to have the greatest impact on the hard-core opium users.

Nazar, a refugee from a village in the Kharkand region, has been
taking opium for half of his life -- about 22 years. Sometimes he
quits when he runs out of money, but he always comes back. "When I
started opium, I knew it was harmful, so I didn't give it to my
children," says the grizzled carpet weaver, wearing the white
skullcap of a devout Muslim. "I'm a poor man, and I can't afford it,
but what can I do? I'm living on borrowed money."

But Maula Mehdi says a team of horses couldn't drag him back to
drugs.

"Taking the drug was like a kick in the head," says the onetime
farmer. "But I'm determined," he says, pinching his ears in a
Central Asian sign of good luck. "I won't start it again."