THE DRUG TRADE'S COLLATERAL DAMAGE

KHOSAN--With widespread unemployment in this Afghan border town has
come a growing epidemic of drug abuse. Khosan, 10 miles from Iran, is
a transit point for smugglers, and residents here say that their town
is awash in hashish and opium that is available in nearly every
market shop. Two bean-size rocks of the newest and most popular drug
here, crystal opium, sell for $2.

The situation is serious, says the head of the local women's council,
who estimates that 2 out of every 3 women in town use drugs. "Most of
the ladies don't have anything to do during the day, so they are
becoming addicted," says Ziagol Tajik. The numbers are similar for
the men, says another senior leader here.

There is another deeply troubling trend as well, says Tajik: Some
husbands force their wives to become addicted so the women don't
complain about the money the men spend on drugs. Though she calls
drug abuse her No. 1 concern, Tajik says that she has received little
support from the town council: "We don't have any big leaders in town
thinking about this. We went to higher departments--they say they
don't have any budget for it." She says she was told to check with
the nongovernmental aid organizations.

In Kabul, the capital, the issue of how to curtail opium production
is widely debated; less so the topic of drug addiction. A senior
counternarcotics official, Razaq Amiri, downplays the idea of women
as addicts, though he says that more jobs are needed to discourage
drug use by men.

Still, Tajik is hoping that U.S. troops will consider providing drug
treatment for the town's addicted women. But town senior leaders tend
not to pass along the pleas of the women's council. Indeed, after a
trip to Khosan to hear about local requests, U.S.military officials
said that no one had mentioned drug abuse or a treatment clinic.

Bumper crops. Drug addiction here is largely a byproduct of
Afghanistan's soaring production of opium poppies. Afghanistan
currently accounts for an estimated 90 percent of the world's opium
supply. Last year, opium exports were estimated at $3.1 billion--a
third of the country's gross domestic product.

Under the rule of the Taliban, opium cultivation was nearly
eradicated, at least briefly. But the ban, which threw many farmers
deep into debt, undercut support for the Taliban, and farmers
returned to the crop in the anarchy following the regime's ouster. A
study by the United Nations and World Bank concluded that the ban
very likely would not have been sustainable for much longer anyway,
even with the Taliban's harsh enforcement methods.

Today, Afghanistan's new government is struggling to extend its reach
to the vast rural areas, and NATO soldiers are busy battling the
remnants of the Taliban. Despite efforts to eradicate opium poppies,
farmers harvested a record crop last year, and forecasts suggest this
year's production could be higher. Not that the smugglers really need
it: There are estimates that Afghan farmers and traders have amassed
as much as a five-year stockpile of the raw drug.

The bulk of the opium cultivation currently takes place in
Afghanistan's southern provinces. But the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime estimates that as much as 60 percent of the illicit
drugs are trafficked through Iran, a trade that affects these poor
border villages.

Currently, severely addicted women are put in a mud hut in town, but
they don't receive treatment, says Tajik. Others go house to house,
asking to borrow money or selling off possessions. Tajik would like
to see more projects for women in the region. "All of the ladies want
to work here," she says.

Projects to promote skills like tailoring or carpet weaving could
succeed with start-up funds for training, she says. But residents
need the investment before it's too late. "If you build a lot of
projects, and a generation is addicted, it's a big problem, and it's
all for nothing," she says. "Right now," she adds, in a variation on
an American idiom, "we are digging ourselves into a deep well."

With Kevin Whitelaw in Washington