Mar
30
The neighbors of Afghanistan: victims standing on the opium route
March 30, 2008 | | 1 Comment
By Violet
Afghanistan is only part of the drug traffic link, although the most important as the origin of the raw opium. However, not only the poor people in Afghanistan are the victim of the cheap raw opium, Iran and Pakistan are also falling along being the neighbors of the world’s largest opium producer.
Mohammad Yusuf, a doctor at a drug rehabilitation centre in Charikar, capital of Parwan Province, northern Afghanistan, said most addicts they treated had picked up the habit in Iran or Pakistan where they were refugees, according to a IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) report. The two victims cited by the report both get addicted to the opium with a hope to alleviate the tiredness after a day’s hard work.
Pakistan is more than a country housing refugees from Afghanistan, and Afghanistan also no longer only producing raw material. Drug labs operating within Afghanistan process an increasingly large portion of the country’s raw opium into heroin and morphine base, according to the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2008 released by the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs [INL].
This process has reduced the bulk of raw opium about one-tenth, which facilitates its movement to markets in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East with transit routes through Iran, Pakistan, and Central Asia, the March 2008 report said.
According to the report, Opiates are then transported to Turkey, Russia, and the rest of Europe by organized criminal groups that are often organized along regional and ethnic kinship lines. Pakistani nationals play a prominent role in all aspects of the drug trade along the Afghan/Pakistan border.
The INL report showed that Pakistan is now on the frontline of the war against drugs as a major transit country for opiates and hashish from neighboring Afghanistan. In 2007, there was frequent conflict between militants and Pakistani forces near the border with Afghanistan, said INL.
Pakistan saw an increase of poppy cultivation in 2007. Roughly 2,315 ha were cultivated in 2007 compared to cultivation of approximately 1,908 ha in 2006, according to the report.
Comments
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)1 Comment so far
It would be intresting to find out who the people are behind the drug labs- are they big international drug dealers, or groups like Al Qaeda who use the money to fund their wars?