ONCE AN EXPORTER, AFGHANISTAN'S HEROIN PROBLEM IS COMING HOME

The Country Produces 93 Per Cent Of The World's Supply Of Opium

KABUL -- Afghanistan, the world's biggest heroin producer, is
struggling to cope with a drug problem as thousands of Afghans --
trying to cope with the traumas of war, displacement and poverty --
are becoming addicted to narcotics.

On the outskirts of Kabul, a sprawling bombed-out building that was
once a centre for culture and science is home to more than 100
squatters whose main concern is feeding their heroin habit.

Ghulam Ahmad, a 17-year-old addict, has been injecting heroin for
almost two years now. Like many living in the squalid, filthy
building, he started using drugs in neighbouring Iran.

"I used to work nights in a factory in Iran, and the factory owner,
an Iranian man, was addicted to opium himself," he said.

Later, Ahmad moved onto heroin, before being deported back to his
native Afghanistan. He now spends his days begging on the streets of
Kabul to feed his habit.

Afghanistan produced some 8,200 tonnes of opium in 2007, or 93 per
cent of the world's supply. More land is used to cultivate drugs in
Afghanistan than Bolivia, Colombia and Peru combined, the United Nations says.

In the past, opium was smuggled abroad from Afghanistan and then
processed into heroin before it hit the streets of Europe, the Indian
sub-continent and the Middle East.

But now the problem is coming home.

In recent years, Afghan drug lords have sought to maximize profits by
processing opium into heroin at home before sending it abroad.

Some drugs inevitably remain inside the country, where there is a
ready market for heroin due to the high rate of drug use among the
hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees returning or deported from
neighbouring Iran and Pakistan.

The rates of addiction in Afghanistan have increased sharply since
2003 to nearly four per cent of the population, the UN says. There
are now roughly 150,000 opium users, 50,000 heroin addicts and
520,000 cannabis smokers. Of those 120,000 are women and 60,000 are children.

"Decades of war, poverty, unemployment, post-war trauma and the
availability of a variety of drugs in Afghanistan have created tens
of thousands of young Afghan drug addicts," said Jehanzeb Khan, of
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC, in Afghanistan.

"Most of them are deportees from neighbouring countries -- Iran and
Pakistan," he said.

Mohammad Bashir, 24, who also lives in the Russian-built former
cultural centre has been addicted to heroin for more than seven
years. He was recently deported from Iran.

"I was a good tailor, I used to work very hard. In order to [get]
relief from my load of work, I used to either smoke or eat opium as a
pain killer every day," he said scratching his face with both hands.
"I don't know if I can get out this misery."

"My daily spending on heroin is about 200 afghanis [$4]. I have to
manage to find it by all means," he said. "If I don't get the money,
my entire body will be in severe pain."

According to Afghan drug analysts, 98 per cent of Afghan drug addicts
do not have jobs and find money for drugs through begging or loading
and unloading goods from trucks in nearby markets.

Most Afghans, struggling to make a living themselves, look down on
drug addicts and refuse to give them money, thinking it will fuel
their addiction.

"People usually don't give us jobs, money or food, because drug
addiction is one of the worst habits the normal people can think of,"
Bashir said.

"This evil habit will never let me work until I die."

There is some help for available addicts in Afghanistan, but in a
country ravaged by 30 years of war, there are many other demands on
the government's small budget and limited amounts of international aid.

Around 39 foreign-supported centres are treating drug addicts in Afghanistan.

Zendagi Naween -- or New Life -- is a British-funded Afghan
organization that has been helping Afghan drug addicts since 2003 in
three provinces through community and drug demand-reduction centres.

But its treatment centre in Kabul has only 10 beds despite a long
waiting list of drug addicts, especially heroin users, the centre's
director Dr. Naseemullah Bawar explained.

"[To] rid the [patients] of the drug needs from their body, we need
to keep them in the bed for 28 days," he said.

"The number of drugs users is rising dramatically everyday," he
added. "We need more assistance to build more centres to help these people."

Ekhtiar Gul, an Afghan heroin addict, is one of the lucky ones as he
is receiving treatment in Zendagi Naween.

"I can feel a big difference in me and after my treatment is
complete, I will start a new life ... drug free," he said.

But Gul's optimism may be misplaced.

"Some 70 per cent of treated drug users go back to drugs due to
joblessness, stress and having no proper family or community
support," said Khan, of the UNODC. "When someone is a heroin addict
he is cursed for his whole life."