‘World fails miserably to stop opium threat’: RT reports from drug factory Afghanistan…“It’s politics. The ministries, the politicians… authorities want poppy cultivation to continue,”
RT.com
23 Jun, 2017
Opiate production in Afghanistan has shot up since the US-led invasion in 2001, leading addiction rates there to skyrocket. Meanwhile, the UN said this week that opioids are the world’s “most harmful drug type.” RT investigated the problem in Kabul.
Though only a tiny fraction of the opiates produced in Afghanistan are used domestically, the effects are devastating the local population. An RT crew found an infamous nest of drug addicts in a dry riverbed right in the middle of the Afghan capital, Kabul,
“Every day, it is getting worse – not better. More people become addicted,” Layla Haidari, the founder of the ‘Mother’ association, which helps drug addicts, told RT, noting “I run two rehab centers – one for men, and one for women. Many of the women are mothers with children. I once treated a four-year-old addict.”
“It’s politics. The ministries, the politicians… authorities want poppy cultivation to continue,” she said.
The UN defines opiates as a “subset of opioids comprising the various products derived from the opium poppy plant, including opium, morphine, and heroin.” Afghan opioids are exported via well-oiled smuggling routes – north, to Russia and Europe; east, to Asia; and west, to the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.
According to the World Drug Report released on Thursday, in 2016, about $150 million from illicit Afghan opiate trade went into the pockets of terrorist groups operating in the country that the US and local forces have failed to clamp down on. The UN estimates that up to 85 percent of opium poppies are cultivated in Taliban-influenced territory.
The terrorists appear to care little about the negative health effects that the cultivation of poppy seeds has on the global or Afghan population. The UN estimates that around half of the Taliban’s income comes from its involvement with narcotics, and it seems that all layers of society are involved in generating that profit.
The Rest…HERE
