A new study by the United Nations says that Afghanistan has become a leading consumer of its own drugs. Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium. According to the study, about a million Afghans, or 8 percent of the population, is suffering from an addiction to opiates.
Deputy Chief of United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Robert Watkins, is alarmed by the results of the study. Watkins believes that the numbers are higher because cultural restraints did not permit the survey to cover women and children. The survey found there are at least 350,000 heroin and opium addicts in Afghanistan, representing a 75 percent increase since 2005.
"Eight percent, mostly young and mostly male, are affected by this problem, and as we also learned very much running inside families. Parents who don’t have means to provide medicine for their children will use narcotics as a way of softening the pain," Watkins said. "And the discomfort that the children are experiencing as a result of whatever their illness may be and, consequently, making new drug addicts."
About 50 percent of parents using opium in Afghanistan give the drug to their own children. Watkins is troubled that drug use within the police force in Afghanistan is very high.
"The report shows that between 12 and 41 percent of Afghan police recruits test positive for some kind of drug addiction. Clearly, we are not just concerned about the safety, security and well being of those individuals, but we are concerned about the safety, security and well being of an entire nation."
There are few opportunities for those who want to get treatment in Afghanistan.
"There is a huge treatment gap with only 40 percent of structured drug treatment centers in 21 provinces, which means that some 700,000 people who are willing and trying to overcome their addiction are unable to get any kind of assistance," Watkins said.
Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of opium, from which heroin is produced. More than half of the crop is grown in the southern provinces of the country.
