HEROIN'S STAIN EVIDENT IN PAKISTAN

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Bakh Tiar bows toward Mecca five times a day, praying
to Allah.

As he sits in a trash-strewn dirt alley, he also bows to another god: heroin.

"The teachers say we should not do this," the 35-year-old Tiar said as he
poured a line of white powder on a piece of tin foil. "I still have to do it."

The pockfaced man struck a match, and, holding the foil, kept the flame
under it until the line of heroin heated into a liquid ball. Then, with a
straw in his mouth, he smoked the fumes, twisting his wrist back and forth
to keep his precious drug from dripping off the foil.

That gesture, repeated by an estimated 1.75 million addicts across the
country, has produced a slang term for smoking heroin here. It's called
"kalai," the word for wrist in the Urdu language.

Kalai is Pakistan's dirtiest secret. In this overwhelmingly religious
society that forbids even a sip of beer, drug use flourishes.

And it's a dangerous secret for America.

Experts say that smugglers sneak millions of bales of opium from
Afghanistan into Pakistan, where underground laboratories turn it into
heroin. Some is sold in Pakistan, some flows to Western Europe and even to
America, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Colorado
officials, however, say the state's supplies come from Mexico.

The opium profits pour back into Afghanistan, funding the Taliban and, to a
lesser extent, the opposition Northern Alliance.

Afghanistan is the world's biggest opium producer, supplying 70 percent of
the worldwide heroin market, according to the United Nations Drug Control
Program. In June 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar banned opium
cultivation.

But the DEA questions how strictly the ban was enforced. The agency
believes most of the production cuts were on land the Taliban had seized
from the Northern Alliance.

A Rush Of Opium

Now, though, experts agree the Taliban is unloading opium in a mad rush to
fund the war.

"There's a massive liquidation in their opium stocks," said Farrukh Saleem,
an Islamabad-based business writer who has studied Taliban finances.

Studies show how much those drugs can be worth to the Taliban. An estimate
from India's Institute for Topical Studies shows the Taliban has been
collecting $45 million each year from its opium trade.

That's a little less than half of what the Taliban was spending to fight
the Northern Alliance before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks led to war with
the U.S.

Both the U.S. government and the Pakistani police have tried to keep the
opium from crossing Pakistan's border, officially closed after Sept. 11.
But everybody from drug dealers to counselors treating addicts say the
trade is just as brisk as it was before the American attacks.

"It is no problem getting this," said Fazl Mohammad, 20, using his
dirt-caked fingers to open a cloth bag, showing off a stash of white powder
he will sell to support his habit.

Indeed, heroin prices have remained stable, an indicator that plenty of
drugs are getting through, said the Rev. Gregory Rice, a Catholic
missionary who walks the back streets of Peshawar, trying to get addicts
into his Caritas Pakistan Drug Abuse Treatment Program.

Cheap High

Peshawar's users can still buy a gram of heroin - about enough for one high
- - for the equivalent of 75 cents, Rice said. A similar amount bought in
Denver sells for $180.

"An addict can wash two cars and make enough money to get high and to eat -
but just barely eat," Rice said.

Some of those addicts gathered in their regular alley last week to get high.

The muddy alley is rutted and littered with trash and animal droppings. It
runs next to next to what appears to be an open sewer. Flocks of goats walk
by, maneuvering in between buses and older, ragtag cars.

Police in blue uniforms and berets also pass by, seemingly unaware of the
drugs being sold and smoked just steps away.

There are few statistics on how many addicts live on the streets of
Peshawar, a sprawling city of 5 million that sits on the border with
Afghanistan. Nationwide, the Pakistani government estimates that there are
about 1.75 million addicts among a population of 115 million.

There is scant information on the addiction rate in Afghanistan, although
one DEA estimate says that in some parts of the country, 10 percent to 20
percent of the population is addicted.

Pakistan's government funds few drug abuse treatment programs and
Afghanistan funds none at all. Both governments, guided by an Islamic
dictate that the faithful should not partake of intoxicating substances,
refuse to acknowledge the problem, experts say.

But words from the Koran do little to help addicts who are slowly dying.
"It's like there is no religion here," said drug counselor Jalal Simon,
pointing at the alley packed with a dozen users.

Reaching Out To Addicts

Simon works with Caritas, one of the few programs of its kind in Pakistan.

More than 3,600 people have been through the program since 1984. Most are
Muslim. Some return time and time again after relapses.

Rice does not preach his Christian views to his mostly Muslim clientele.

"Our patients know we are not running this program to proselytize," he said.

The clinic on the outskirts of Peshawar looks like a castle. The high stone
walls adorned with sharp metal spikes are meant to keep bandits out and
patients in.

Inside, the castle turns into an oasis. Red and yellow flowers grow between
green palm leaves. There's a garden, where patients help sow tomatoes,
spinach, lettuce and eggplant. A grassy field the size of a tennis court
provides room for recreation.

Rice keeps addicts a minimum of 15 days for detox and counseling. Some are
here much longer. He has room for as many as 26 patients at a time. They
come from all over Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are all ages. They are
dirt poor and filthy rich.

Sturi Khel is a 64-year-old former truck driver with hardly a penny to his
name. Hizbullah Shah, 40, is wealthy, with money pouring in from the fish
hatcheries his family owns. Sajjad Mashih, 17, started using heroin at 15.
His mother cannot afford his treatment.

"I was very weak when I came here," Mashih said with a grin. "Now I am very
fine."

Rice heads periodically to the dangerous backstreets of Peshawar to try to
persuade addicts to quit the drug.

"Going out to the street we feel is important," he said. "We have to let
them know we're around."

Being More Careful

Since Sept. 11, local police have advised Rice to leave Peshawar. Rice
refuses, saying he hasn't encountered any hostility, but he admits he
doesn't go out as often as he used to.

He said he will continue trying to bring addicts in, although many refuse
because they don't want to admit a heroin addiction in the face of their
religion.

"It's sad that we can't do more, but the fact that we can't do more doesn't
mean we should do nothing," he said.

Until 20 years ago, heroin wasn't a factor in Pakistan. Now it's the
nation's top-selling drug. The change began in 1979, Rice said, when the
Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

Until then, the poppies were shipped through Turkmenistan for processing
and sale in the West. After Russia's armies poured over that border, the
supply lines were cut.

The Afghans made a deal with tribal leaders along Pakistan's border and
began sending the poppies to that area for processing and transport.

Once heroin was being produced in Pakistan, it started selling in Pakistan.

"The heroin problem came from the spillover, as heroin was being
transported throughout the country," Rice said.

Why were heroin sales able to go unchecked for so long? A quick look at
Pakistani court records may yield a clue.

The former director of Pakistan's intelligence agency was convicted in June
for "having assets disproportionate to his known sources of income." He
mysteriously had more than $20 million in various bank accounts, far more
than his army salary could account for. He was sentenced to eight years in
prison.

Testimony presented in court implied that he and 30 other army officials
made their money in the heroin trade.