IT'S EASY FOR SOLDIERS TO SCORE HEROIN IN AFGHANISTAN

Simultaneously Stressed and Bored, U.S. Soldiers Are Turning to the
Widely Available Drug for a Quick Escape.

Just outside the main gate to Bagram airfield, a U.S. military
installation in Afghanistan, sits a series of small makeshift shops
known by locals as the Bagram Bazaar. For Afghans, it is the place to
buy American goods, but the stalls that make up the heart of the
bazaar are also well known for what they provide American soldiers
stationed at Bagram. Walking through the bazaar it takes less than 10
minutes for a vendor in his early 20s to step out and ask, "You want
whiskey?" "No, heroin," I tell him. He ushers me into his store with a smile.

The shop is small, 9 feet wide by 14 feet deep, and dark. The walls
at the front are lined with dusty cans of soda, padlocks and
miscellaneous beauty supplies.

As we enter, a teenager is visible at the back, seated in a chair
next to a collection of American military knives and flashlights. The
shopkeeper speaks to him in Dari. The teen stands and heads for the
door, where he stops and asks my Afghan driver a question. My driver
translates, "He wants to know how much you want? Twenty, 30, 50
dollars' worth?" From past experience, for I have arranged this same
transaction a dozen times in a dozen different Bagram Bazaar shops, I
know that the $30 bag will contain enough pure to bring hundreds of
dollars on the streets of any American city. Afghanistan, after all,
is the source of 90 percent of the world's heroin.

I say 30 and the teen jogs off.

The true extent of the heroin problem among American soldiers now
serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is unknown.

At Bagram, according to a written statement provided by a
spokesperson for the base, Army Maj. Chris Belcher, the "Military
Police receive few reports of alcohol or drug issues." The military
has statistics on how many troops failed drug tests, but the best
information on long-term addiction comes from the U.S. Veterans
Administration. The VA is the world's largest provider of substance
abuse services, caring for more than 350,000 veterans per year, of
whom about 30,000 are being treated for opiate addiction.

Only preliminary information for Iraq and Afghanistan is available,
however, and veterans of those conflicts are not yet showing up in
the stats. According to the VA's annual "Yellowbook" report on
substance abuse, during Fiscal Year 2006, fewer than 9,000 veterans
of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom
(Afghanistan) sought treatment for substance abuse of all kinds at
the VA; the report did not specify how many were treated for opiate abuse.

Experts think it could be a decade before the true scope of heroin
use in Iraq and Afghanistan is known.

Dr. Jodie Trafton, a healthcare specialist with the VA's Center for
Health Care Evaluation in Palo Alto, Calif., says it takes five or 10
years after a conflict for veterans to enter the system in significant numbers.

The VA has recently seen a surge in cases from the first U.S. war in
Iraq. "We're just starting to get a lot of Gulf War veterans," she explains.

For the first few years after a conflict, it's hard to gauge the
number of soldiers who've developed a substance problem.

Young soldiers especially, says Dr. Trafton, tend not to seek
treatment unless pushed by family members. Left to their own devices,
"usually people don't show up for treatment till much later."

The anecdotal information, however, suggests there may be a wave of
new patients coming, and it will include many heroin users.

I'm a filmmaker, and I have been to Afghanistan several times to
research a film about a soldier who died there under murky
circumstances. Before his death, the soldier, John Torres, had told
friends and family of widespread heroin use at Bagram. Based on my
own experience, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars the Bush
administration has spent on opium poppy eradication, Torres was right.

I asked to buy heroin a dozen times during two trips a year apart and
never heard the word "no"; I also saw ample evidence that soldiers
were trading sensitive military equipment, like computer drives and
bulletproof vests, for drugs.

Other soldiers who have served at Bagram agree: Heroin, they say "is
everywhere." And although they haven't shown up in the statistics
yet, reports from methadone clinics suggest the VA's future patients
may already be back in the States in force.

Much like the caskets that return to the Dover Air Force base in the
dead of night, America's new addicts are returning undetected.

Back in the States, it is not difficult to find a soldier who has
returned from Afghanistan with an addiction.

Nearly every veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom I have spoken with
was familiar with heroin's availability on base, and most knew at
least one soldier who used while deployed. In June, I spent a week in
Southern California talking to veterans who had used while in
Afghanistan. Getting one of them to talk to me on the record,
however, was tougher.

When I ask soldiers and veterans to go public about their
experiences, they are wary. "No, I'm still in the reserves," said
one. "I don't want you to write about me," said another. "I'm still
in." Some soldiers from Bagram I've spoken with in the past several
years I can no longer find. Maybe they're in jail, maybe on the street.

Others may have redeployed. "I heard their unit was getting sent back
to Afghanistan," I'm told, "so maybe they're over there."

The soldiers keep quiet because they're concerned about their fellow
soldiers. As a veteran of Afghanistan told me, "These are my
brothers. I wouldn't want to say anything that would bring disrespect
down on them."

But they also don't want to get in trouble with the military for
talking to the media.

They believe that tarnishing the military's image would bring far
more consequences than actually getting caught for using.

"They don't do anything to you [for using]," a reservist tells me.
"Two from my unit were sent home after they got caught more than
once." What happened to them? "Nothing. They're still in the unit.
Just got sent home." Are they still using? "Don't know. I never asked."

According to Maj. Belcher, soldiers are "subject to drug-testing
procedures and if they test positive for illegal substances, they are
dealt with appropriately by their chain of command under the Uniform
Code of Military Justice." But in a military stretched thin, with
reservists a significant portion of the forces being deployed to
Afghanistan and Iraq, the threat of such disciplinary measures has
little bite. As long as soldiers themselves refuse to speak out there
is no reason for action.

I made arrangements to speak with three young men about their heroin
problems. All were veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and
outpatients of the methadone clinic at the West Los Angeles VA
hospital. They had all become addicted during their deployments.

When the time came to meet, however, one of the men had disappeared.
The other two said their VA counselors had told them not to do the
interviews. Realizing there are stages of recovery, and there might
be a clinical reason for the enforced silence, I contacted the
methadone clinic directly.

I was referred to a social worker, who said she would be happy to
speak with me after clearing it with her superiors.

She referred me to the hospital's press person for permission.

The hospital's press person referred me to VA headquarters in
Washington. The Washington office told me a VA representative would
have to sit in on any interviews -- and I would also need to get
approval for the interviews from the physician who supervises the
clinic, the doctor who supervises the counselors who had scotched the
interviews in the first place.

I gave up on getting on-the-record interviews.

The VA also declined, through a spokesperson, to provide any national
estimate of the level of heroin use among Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans. What numbers are available from the military, meanwhile, do
not point to a significant problem.

A spokesperson for the Pentagon referred Salon to the individual
service branches for data on heroin use by military personnel. Air
Force Capt. Tom Wenz emphasized that the number of Air Force
personnel serving in Afghanistan is quite small, and said there had
been no reports of positive drug tests for heroin among Air Force
personnel in either Afghanistan or Iraq. Maj. Cheryl Phillips of the
Army, which accounts for the bulk of the Afghanistan and Iraq forces,
said that in 2006 not one of the Army soldiers in either theater
tested positive for heroin, and that all positive drug-test results
are in line with historic norms. "The Army randomly tests soldiers
for use of illicit/unauthorized drugs on a regular basis and, on
average, has maintained a 98 percent 'clean' rate ... over the past
20 years, including the periods of OEF and OIF." The Navy's level of
positive drug tests for all personnel worldwide was less than 1
percent as of 2005. A representative of the Marine Corps did not
respond by deadline to an e-mailed request for information on levels
of heroin use, if any, by Marines.

My own experience among young veterans in Southern California,
however, suggests that drug tests do not tell the story.

New Directions, situated on the grounds of the West Los Angeles VA
hospital, is an organization offering programs for homeless veterans.

It has a 24-bed detox unit. In the past year, according to outreach
director Anthony Belcher (no relation to Maj. Belcher), New
Directions has seen approximately 15 Afghanistan and Iraq veterans,
six of them "needing a methadone detox."

The methadone clinic in the West Los Angeles VA hospital itself has
seen significantly more. An individual familiar with the methadone
program at the hospital says they are "lined up 50 or 60 deep each
morning." While the source does not know the service record of the
patients, the source says, "These are young guys." The VA has 250
substance abuse centers nationwide.

Belcher of New Directions expects the caseload to pick up later,
echoing Jodie Trafton's words about a delay between addiction and treatment.

The Afghanistan and Iraq veterans Belcher's group has been seeing
have been discharged about two years on average. "That's how long it
takes for them to be forced into a detox unit by family, or law
enforcement, or circumstances."

Greg Spencer, a representative of the nonprofit National Veterans
Foundation, calls the phenomenon "lag time." "We won't know the
enormity of this problem for some time," he says, because "there is a
period between the beginning stages and the so-called bottom out,
where one seeks treatment.

We are just starting, in the past two years or so, to see OEF/OIF
vets coming to treatment facilities for heroin addiction."

Both Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are coming home with substance
problems. But the reasons behind their addictions are frequently different.

Because the deployment to Iraq is so much larger than the deployment
to Afghanistan, with more than five times as many troops in country
at any given time, the VA is likely to be treating more Iraq veterans
than Afghanistan veterans for substance abuse.

Anecdotally, addiction among veterans returning from Iraq seems
largely linked to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Overall, more than a third of the VA's 350,000 substance abuse
patients from every era also suffer from PTSD. For soldiers suffering
from PTSD, the use of heroin and other illicit drugs is frequently a
form of self-medication, and a way to keep their stress and trauma at bay.

Many of the addicts returning from Afghanistan, however, point to
sheer boredom as the reason for their use. "I had to work 12 hours a
day, seven days a week, but half the time there was nothing to do,"
one reservist who served at Bagram complained. Another expressed
frustration at the number of contractors sharing their positions. "It
really pissed us off that we were there doing the same job as KBR
guys who were making three or four times as much. It sucked." Bored
and disillusioned with the process and mission at hand, many soldiers
turn to heroin to pass the time and escape the monotony.

While heroin is available in Iraq, it is that much easier to obtain
in Afghanistan, a source country.

But both conflicts have something in common with a prior war --
Vietnam. Whereas the first Gulf War involved a long deployment by
troops inside the austere, puritanical nation of Saudi Arabia,
followed by a short war and a relatively rapid return home, both the
Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are protracted occupations of
countries where heroin has long been available.

Afghanistan is a source country, a la the nations of Southeast Asia.
As Mark Benjamin reported in Salon last December, combat in Iraq also
shares certain features with combat in Vietnam -- constant patrols
punctuated by ambushes, a deteriorating sense of mission -- that are
likely to produce high levels of PTSD.

About 2.4 million Americans had served in Vietnam before the U.S.
pulled out in 1973. In 1971, while the war was coming to a close, the
media reported that the level of heroin addiction was 10 to 15
percent of lower ranking enlisted men. Contemporary researchers
concurred, putting the figure at 14 percent.

Those figures were later revised sharply downward, with true
addiction now thought to be closer to 4.5 percent.

Researchers still believe, however, that 20 percent of all soldiers
who served in Vietnam used opiates at least once. More than half of
the veterans now being treated for substance abuse by the VA served
during the Vietnam era, but the percentage of opiate addicts who
served during the Vietnam era was unavailable.

The number of troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan recently
passed 1.5 million early this year. No expert has yet ventured an
estimate of what percentage will come home addicted to heroin.

For now, Anthony Belcher is going with his gut. "You can make
analogies to Vietnam ... Afghanistan and Iraq, especially Iraq, seem
to be another Vietnam."

At the Bagram Bazaar, as I stood waiting for the teen courier to
return with my order, I compared shopping for junk in Afghanistan in
2007 to shopping for junk in 2006. In May of 2006, I had toured the
shops for the first time with Juan Torres and Afghan journalist Ajmal
Naqshbandi, who served as guide and translator. Juan Torres' son,
Spc. John Torres, was found dead of a gunshot wound while serving at
Bagram in July of 2004. At the time Spc. Torres' family, and some
members of his unit, believed he may have been killed for speaking
out about heroin use on base. John's death turned out to be
attributable to another cause, which became the subject of the film I
am now completing, but his accusations about the ready availability
of heroin, and similar claims by other Bagram soldiers, had prompted
me to investigate how heroin was making its way to U.S. soldiers.

When I visited the shops that line the main road to the Bagram base
back in 2006, they didn't look like much. The bazaar was a jumble of
small, improvised, windowless structures of mud brick, corrugated tin
and wood. Once inside the shops, however, a startling array of
American goods came into view, many of them military issue --
bulletproof vests, hydration packs, helmets, knives, CD and DVD
players, video game controllers and more. They were all goods that
had either been traded by U.S. soldiers for contraband, or stolen by
Afghans working on base and then sold to the shops.
The goods the soldiers most wanted to receive in return -- heroin,
liquor and Viagra -- were all available and on hand. It was easy and
quick to get a shopkeeper to produce a $30 baggie of pure heroin.

A year later, the more startling American goods are out of site, and,
though I still never get no for an answer, the heroin is no longer
kept in the shop. In 2007, I have to wait for the heroin to be
brought to the store from off-site.

The shopkeeper apologizes for the delay in the courier's return,
lights a cigarette, and tells me to call ahead next time. He offers
me his cell number. "I can have it ready then, no wait. But now you
have to wait 10, 20 minutes. OK?"

I ask why he doesn't have any heroin ready to sell, that last year
shops had heroin on hand. He apologizes again, and says the district
governor has cracked down. "They are sweeping the shops now, because
of the Cheney bomb."

The "Cheney bomb" is how locals refer to the suicide bomber who
struck near Bagram's main gate during the vice president's visit in
February of 2007. Following the blast the military either better
enforced existing procedures, or implemented new regulations
pertaining to the search of locals coming on and off base. In his
written statement to me, Maj. Belcher said that in the first four
months of 2007 such procedures had stopped roughly "20 attempts to
bring illegal drugs through the gate at Bagram airfield, all
committed by either local national or third country national truck
drivers." The random sweeps currently being carried out against
merchants are believed to be an attempt by the local governor to
placate the American military following the blast.

But sweeps and intimidation are nothing new, and "don't last long," a
shopkeeper says. "Last year they threatened to close us after the
computer problem."

In April of 2006 a foreign journalist bought a flash drive containing
classified documents from the bazaar, documents that according to
published reports contained "base defense information" and "names of
allegedly corrupt Afghan officials" among other sensitive
information. It was not known whether the flash drive had found its
way to the bazaar via sale, theft or barter, but it was not the only
piece of sensitive computer equipment available for purchase.

The military's embarrassed response to the scandal was to attempt to
buy back any flash drives and discs found in the shops.

The publicity surrounding the disc disclosures caused embarrassment
to base leadership and resulted in threats against the bazaar. "The
Americans wanted to bulldoze our shops," a vendor said. "But local
leaders warned there would be violence. So they backed down." The
result was a temporary increase in scrutiny.

The Cheney bomb has created a similar, but more severe crackdown.

Now shopkeepers have moved big ticket items off-site for safety.
Bulletproof vests, DVD players, military gear and other items stolen
or traded for on base have been relocated to protect against
confiscation. Heroin, hard liquor and Viagra, meanwhile, have been
moved to locations within a 10- to 15-minute radius of the bazaar.

While waiting for the teen to return I browse the items on display
and ask if business on base is still good. Until now the vendor has
been speaking with me directly in broken English, but the question
prompts him to switch to Dari and engage my driver in a heated
discussion. After a few moments, Hakimi says, "He is worried you are
an American from base to get him in trouble, but I told him no, you
just want to know about the heroin." "No trouble. Just wondering," I
tell him. He seems unsure, and scans the area in front of his shop.
What he sees, or doesn't see, sets him at ease.

"So how are you getting drugs on if they are checking?" I ask. He
picks up a matchbox, opens it and points inside. "Put drugs, or with
tobacco, then over." He then tosses me the box. He sees I am confused.

He speaks to my driver.

My driver translates: "He says they put money or drugs in the
matchbox, or with cigarettes, and pass it over the fence, so they
don't have to carry it in the gate, that or they pass it to soldiers
while they are off the base." I ask what part of the fence.
"Different places. It's big," the shopkeeper responds.

And he is right.

The base is large and portions of the fence are remote from activity.

Despite bans on photographing or filming near the base, in 2006 I
filmed for nearly two hours along stretches of the fence line without
being confronted.

Because the base is surrounded in part by small farms and villages,
it is common to see locals and children walking or working in the
fields near the fence.

Young boys are hired to work as runners.

They linger in the fields near the fence and make contact with
soldiers, who pass them money and instructions. The boys then run and
fill the orders at a location nearby, returning to the spot and
delivering the drugs, usually within 20 to 30 minutes.

An Afghan translator who works at Bagram confirmed that much of what
is currently making its way on base is arriving this way. "It is hard
to get things through the gate right now, so the fence is good," he
said. "At the back, by the construction areas, there are some spots,
but lots of places work." I ask him if he has been asked to bring
drugs on base. "Yes, they ask me for heroin or liquor, sometimes
hashish. But I say no. I make too much to get caught. It is the
workers who don't make much money who do it. It is a better thing for them."

Children have long been used to pass contraband. During his 2006
trip, Juan Torres was granted a tour of the base, and allowed to see
where his late son, John, had worked and lived.

During his visit I stayed in the staging area between the two gates
that serve as the main entrance.

The first gate is manned by Afghans, the second, some 200 to 300
yards away, is manned by U.S. soldiers.

Before the Cheney bomb a number of vendors were allowed to operate in
the space between the two gates, and serve the needs of truck drivers
and workers waiting to enter.

The area was similar to the bazaar, with small makeshift shops and
food vendors.

The day of Juan's visit the staging area was crowded.

Dozens of trucks were lined up waiting to enter the base, and truck
drivers and Afghan workers were milling about.

Children were ubiquitous. Dozens of young children ranging in age
from 7 to 14 were wandering the area freely, helping vendors, and
talking and playing with the U.S. military personnel manning the
second gate. The ease with which they moved through the area, and the
familiarity they were shown by the U.S. soldiers, illustrated their
usefulness to dealers.

A vendor had told me the children are beyond suspicion, so they pass
contraband unnoticed. More than one child asked, "You need something?
Give me money and I will get it."

Though there is no threat of arrest for a local caught smuggling
contraband into Bagram, the consequence of being stopped is still
high. In his statement, Maj. Belcher confirmed that individuals who
are intercepted with contraband are "investigated and banned from
entering Bagram again." As dealers point out, since there are
countless ways to get drugs to soldiers, risking a local's access to
base by trying to send a courier through the gates is unnecessary.
But many also believe the added scrutiny at the gates is a temporary
inconvenience. "They won't check hard forever," a shopkeeper tells
me. Like others, he believes the base will eventually ease up, and
goods will once again flow through the gates.

Ten minutes and the teen has not returned.

A crowd has begun to gather outside the shop. A group of children are
standing at the entrance, waiting to steer me toward their family shops.

Two old men, curious or waiting for a handout, stand behind them,
watching and listening patiently. The shopkeeper tells them to leave,
which they fail to do. He then becomes agitated once again.

He speaks to my driver who translates: "He doesn't want any trouble."
I buy a few items to thank him for his time and prepare to leave.

He apologizes and tells us to come back in a little while and he'll
have the heroin ready, with no crowd.

As we step outside, the kids and old men vie for our attention as we
walk toward the entrance to the base. The bazaar has changed, but it
has also stayed the same. The method of distribution has fluctuated,
service is slower, but the flow of contraband has gone unchecked.

Across the road I see the teen making his way back to the shop.