HEROIN ADDICTION BOOMS

Afghanistan Faces Spiralling Drug Problem

Brothers Abdul Jabar and Abdul Sitar crouch on the floor of their
spartan Kabul living room as each light up a small heroin cigarette
and draw deeply.

Nearby, several of their 11 small children watch impassively. For the
kids, this is nothing unusual. Their fathers have been addicted to
heroin, and largely incapacitated by it, since long before they were
born. Two of the older boys, who look about eight or nine, generate
the family's only income by selling products off a cart after school.

"Because of this thing, I can't work, I can't talk sometimes. I eat
stones," says Abdul Jabar, who later illustrates his odd compulsion
by swallowing three small rocks. He says he usually passes them
without incident. "If I knew I would be in this condition, I wouldn't
have used this drug."

Yet the two brothers, and a third who successfully went through
rehabilitation recently, are far from alone in their plight. Although
it is a strict Muslim country, held in the grip of a fundamentalist
regime for five years until 2001, Afghanistan is suffering from a
boom in heroin addiction. The international community has sought to
crack down on the war-weary nation's record poppy crops, now serving
90 per cent of the world's demand, but the abundant supply of
heroin's main raw ingredient has taken a terrible toll at home.

An influx of Afghan refugees who became addicted in Iran and in
Pakistan, the ravages of nearly 30 years of war and grinding poverty
are also blamed.

"It is not only the rest of the world that is suffering. We are
suffering; it is a big problem for us as well," says Dr. Tariq
Suliman, who heads the Nejat Centre, a local rehab clinic.

"Now on each and every street we have people who suffer from drug
addiction . . . It is spreading fast and it is difficult to control."

Injection of heroin -- and sharing of needles -- is becoming
increasingly more common, helping fuel an HIV problem that threatens
to spiral out of control.

Authorities have confirmed 71 HIV cases in Afghanistan, but estimate
there are really 1,500 to 2,000. A United Nations study in 2005
estimated there are a million Afghan drug addicts: 50,000 using
heroin, 150,000 opium, 500,000 hashish and about 400,000 using other
illicit drugs.

The number of heroin addicts doubled in Kabul between 2003 and 2005,
and their ranks have undoubtedly swollen since then, says Suliman.

Although a number of treatment programs have cropped up since the
fall of the Taliban, waiting lists are still months long.

The Abdul brothers have been trying for six months to get into Nejat,
and worry their brother, who was successfully treated there, could
fall off the wagon.

"If we were treated together, this problem would have been solved
very soon," says Abdul Jabar.