THE AFGHAN VILLAGE THAT USES OPIUM AS ITS CURRENCY

Paper money has all but disappeared from the village of
Shahran-e-Khash. Instead the common currency is the one resource
Afghanistan has no shortage of - opium.

At the market in this remote north-eastern corner of Afghanistan, five
litres of engine oil - worth around UKP5 - can be bought for 100g of
opium. Two bottles of Coca-Cola will set you back 18g. Even the
children use opium to buy goods.

"All the children put a little bit of opium on a leaf as payment. They
ask the shopkeeper, 'Please give me a pen, give me two notebooks, give
me two biscuits and three pieces of chewing gum'," explained Shahran
Pur, a tribal elder.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium and the drugs
trade has become a major headache for President Hamid Karzai and his
Nato allies. While poppy farming often helps fund the Taliban-led
insurgency, officials are acutely aware of how important it also is to
the general population. Nowhere is this more apparent than in
Shahran-e-Khash, a remote village two hours from Faizabad, the capital
of the relatively peaceful province of Badakhshan.

Its entire economy is built around opium, with everyone from children
to the local hardware store owner dealing in the drug. People here are
so poor they frequently don't have the money to buy basic household
goods. Instead, they use the poppies they grow in the surrounding
fields to purchase what they need.

If the poppy is not in season the shopkeeper will keep a record in a
ledger of the items people have taken and the debts are paid off after
the harvest. When he finally has the drug, he sells it to a third
party who comes from outside the area. The money he makes from this
transaction is then used to replenish his stock.

Khan Agha, 30, who runs a fabric store, said: "Yes, my trade is based
on the poppy. If they were not cultivated here everyone would move,
especially me.

"We weigh the opium and it has a specific price. The fabric also has
its specific price; we deal with it that way. After I collect the
opium I will put it into packets according to weight, then a customer
comes who buys it wholesale. I sell it to them for cash and then go to
Kabul or Faizabad to get the fabric for my shop."

Shahran-e-Khash is situated in the district of Khash and many villages
in the area are equally dependent upon opium. The poppies are planted
in March and commonly harvested during August or September. Unlike
other parts of Afghanistan, harvest usually only comes once a year
because of the cold.

Residents are adamant there is not a single drug addict among the
local population. They also claim they have no contact with the people
involved further down the smuggling chain.

Shahran Pur, the tribal elder, asked that his real name not be published in
this article. He told The Independent: "It's the same system as if someone
grows potatoes or onions and takes them to the market. The shopkeeper will
buy it and then he will sell it to other customers.

"You will see a young man coming here on his motorbike who will need
7kg of opium from the shopkeeper. He might have travelled from very
far, for example Faizabad, and he can also put bread on the table just
because of this work. But the real mafia involved, we don't know where
they are."

Afghanistan accounts for more than 90 per cent of the world's opium
supply and according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) cultivation in 2006 rose by 59 per cent on the previous year.

The Afghan government's intermittent attempts at curbing the trade are
often met with resistance. Even the International Security Assistance
Force (Isaf) recently aired a radio advert in the southern province of
Helmand saying it was acceptable to produce opium. The ad was
withdrawn after complaints from Kabul.

Cultivation in Badakhshan increased by 77 per cent last year and the
people of Shahran-e-Khash said they have been offered no real
alternative. "Let me tell you, every member of our tribe, everyone, is
aware of how bad this is. We know what sort of crimes might be
committed because of these drugs. We feel guilty for doing this and we
accept that we partly share in those crimes," Shahran Pur said.

"If the government came to us and gave us food for three months we
would try to spend the other nine months with an empty stomach and we
would stop cultivating this."