Afghanistan, the land of incessant turmoil has one more thing to worry about now, parents spreading drug use in the confines of their homes. Infants are inheriting drug addiction in the womb, and drinking opium-laced breast milk. And when he cries, he is calmed with specks of opium diluted in tea. This is the hidden face of addiction in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is the world’s leading producer of opium and heroin, exporting drugs to Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States. But the scale of domestic drug abuse has only recently become apparent.
The first countrywide survey on drug use, conducted last year by the Ministry of Counter Narcotics and UN Office on Drugs and Crime, found nearly one million addicts in this country of about 30 million people, including 60,000 children under age 15. This grave situation needs to be urgently controlled, but the opium production which rose 49 per cent this year is not an encouraging sign.
When one person starts using drugs, the whole family is addicted. Because there has been little drug education in Afghanistan, many people appear ignorant of the risks of addicting children and the social problems it brings.
Drugs of choice range from hashish, opium and heroin to pharmaceutical medicines. An estimated 5,000 children are addicted to opiates, and the remainder take cough syrup and other drugs, the survey found.
Apart from the on-going civil war, this dangerously setting in culture needs to be immediately addressed by the concerned authorities.
Via: Afghanistan Times
