The War In Afghanistan Has Turned A Generation Of Children Into Heroin Addicts

[Octoldit]

By Michaela Whitton

One of the many catastrophic legacies left behind by the longest war in U.S. history is that Afghanistan produces 90% of the world’s opium. As with most parts of the world, the most vulnerable pay the heaviest price of war, and the country has faced a harrowing escalation in the number of child heroin addicts.

“What’s happened in Afghanistan over the last 13 years has been the flourishing of a narco-state that is really without any parallel in history,” Kabul-based journalist Matthieu Aikins toldDemocracy Now back in 2014.

Adding that all levels of Afghan society are involved in the flourishing trade — which became undeniably worse after the U.S.-led invasion — Aikins accused both the Taliban and government-linked officials of profiting from the crisis. He claimed the U.S., in its quest for vengeance against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, not only cooperated with warlords but ignored corruption by criminals whose human rights abuses created the conditions that led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place.

As a result, Afghanistan now produces twice as much opium as it did in the year 2000, and the booming trade now accounts for 50% of the country’s GDP. Since the cartels began refining their poppy harvests into addictive and profitable heroin, the street price for “powder,” as it is known, is the cheapest in the world — and it costs less than food in the war-torn country.

Lost childhoods
The psychological damage of war, together with the flood of cheap heroin, has led to a doubling in addiction rates over the last five years. In the Channel 4 documentary, Unreported World, Ramita Naval explores a harrowing escalation in child addiction. In the ravaged country, where access to drug treatment is severely limited, she visits a rehabilitation centre where children as young four or five — haunted by horrors they have witnessed — attempt to regain lost childhoods.

The only treatment centre in Kabul to help children, it was originally set up to treat women. The 20-bed unit, which forces kids off the drugs by making them go cold turkey is, ironically, funded by the U.S. State Department. Naval is introduced to a number of very small children who are at varying stages of the 45-day treatment programme.

At one point, the reporter finds it hard to contain her dismay at being in a room full of drug-addicted children. One describes becoming addicted after taking the drug for toothache, while another became hooked after inhaling his father’s smoke. Doctor Latifa Hamidi said in the past two years she has seen a 60% increase in the number of child addicts at the centre. Claiming the future of the country is at stake, she added, “There is going to be a future generation of drug addicts that need help and aren’t going to be able to work.”

The problem is so severe among the child population that many are taking desperate measures to fund their habits. Naval spoke to a 13-year-old boy at a safe house who began using when his parents were killed by shelling. From the age of eight, he was paid by drug addicts to guard them while they smoked. Unsurprisingly, he then developed his own habit, which he funds with child prostitution. Many addicted children sell their bodies, as there are no jobs or work.

Fifteen-year-old Ali has been using heroin for the past two years. His mother is dead and his father fled to Iran. He smoked a gram of heroin, which cost £1, on camera as he explained how he became addicted.

The young boy’s trauma began when, after witnessing a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, he went to stay with relatives in the countryside. While he was there, U.S. forces bombed his village, killing dozens of people; he described seeing bodies scattered everywhere. The young boy and other villagers had to pick up the body parts and put them in plastic bags. Claiming the war breaks his heart — and making his descent into drug use more understandable — he said, “I’d rather not live, than live through this war.”

With drug use haram, or forbidden, in Islam, addiction is seen as shameful. Consequently, many of society’s most vulnerable are often too ashamed to ask for help. As a result, a hidden epidemic has arisen, affecting thousands of parents and children behind closed doors. Naval accompanies a medical team of doctors and social workers who are frequently attacked and beaten during their work:

“More and more children are becoming addicted because the country is awash with opium,” the doctor said. “If the government doesn’t do anything about this situation, Afghanistan is going to face another disaster,” she added.

Claiming that of 130,000 families in the area, 60% are addicted to drugs, the doctor explained many men pick up their addictions while working in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. After using drugs as a stimulant to help them work longer hours, they return, bringing their addictions with them — often passing their new habits on to entire families.

Opium is also part of daily life in Afghanistan’s refugee camps, where the internally displaced are left to fend for themselves. Government doctors rarely visit, and agencies are ill-equipped to deal with child addicts — many whom have fled fighting in other provinces and are left with devastating injuries as a result of the war. Locals claim that even if painkillers were available, opium is much cheaper and more effective.

Three-year-old Zarima lost her arm when her village was attacked during fighting between the government and insurgents. With no doctors or medicine, her father had no option but to give her opium. He had tried to stop the treatment a number of times, but she suffered severe withdrawal symptoms. Other locals described being forced to perform amputations due to lack of medical help.

Cheaper than food
Entire villages of people are addicted to opium, and Naval visits one family where three out of six of children are addicted. One little boy, who began smoking at the age of three, was sprawled out next to his father, completely out of it. He explained that he needs to smoke three times a day or he suffers painful withdrawals. When asked if he ever goes out and plays with other kids, he shook his head.

The boy’s mother originally gave him opium to cure a stomach ache. Now the family uses the drug for a very different reason. “There is not enough food to feed the whole family,” his mother said.“When you smoke you lose your appetite,” she added, explaining that while food for the family of nine costs £3 a day, a day’s worth of opium costs £2.

Summing up the hidden side of the devastation in the war-ravaged country, Naval was frank and said that while the world is focused on the fight against the Taliban, the country is being consumed from within — by an equally serious and long-term threat.

This article (The War in Afghanistan Has Turned a Generation
Source: The War in Afghanistan Has Turned a Generation of Children Into Heroin Addicts

 

[DGS49]

Is this yet another attempt to lay a massive problem at the feet of the American people? Blame America first?

WE are not responsible for the economic and behavioral decisions of a population that lives 10,000 miles from here. WE want nothing more than that the country join the ranks of civilized, peaceful countries where leadership is chosen by the people and rules according to international standards of decency, with basic civil rights for all.

The country is a corrupt shit-hole, where monstrous religious zealots have successfully terrorized at least two generations of the population. We are spending untold American lives and treasure to try to bring them into the 21st century, and we are responsible for their problems?

The whole country can, figuratively speaking, go fuck itself blind.

 

[Octoldit]

One must understand some people do exist who really believe the type of utter stupidity written by someone who would rather make B.S excuses than acknowledge the true facts.

Here's a moron who has no idea the type of beastly sub-human operations that the Zionist working though the C.I.A. carry out in many nations all over the world.

Don't try to pretend that American terrorism is somehow civilized or decent. The Zionist have taught American useful idiots the type of satanic greed that has made them into savage barbarians.

Remove the secrecy and all the world will witness the type well thought out terrorism this besieged nation is responsible for.

The modern technology means nothing, and is no sign of being civilized.

The fundamental instincts and nature of those consumed by such wicked greed is far less than the lowest animal. It's the ability to think along with the nature of a savage that creates the worst type of evil. They are no longer human despite their appearance, and the word monster still falls short in describing these scoundrels.

An opium war is extremely destructive and the politicians need to be held accountable for all the torment they have caused America and all the other nations they destroy.

Don't be so quick to believe the population of those living in Afghanistan are treated any worst than the American people would be treated by sub-human greedy Zionist bankers and their politicians if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Don't think for a second gun control was ever meant to keep you safe.

 

[georgephillip]

There's a context of US-Afghan relations most Americans are unaware of that goes back to the 1950s

"Fractured by internal conflict and foreign intervention for centuries, Afghanistan made several tentative steps toward modernization in the mid-20th century.

"In the 1950s and 1960s, some of the biggest strides were made toward a more liberal and westernized lifestyle, while trying to maintain a respect for more conservative factions.

"Though officially a neutral nation, Afghanistan was courted and influenced by the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War, accepting Soviet machinery and weapons, and U.S. financial aid."
Afghanistan in the 1950s and 60s
US investing in Afghanistan during the 1950s involved an irrigation project that inadvertently affected soil alkalinity in such a way as to make opiate farming more profitable than traditional crops. Nothing was deliberately done to achieve this result, but unintended consequence have their lasting effects.

 

[Katzndogz]

Am I supposed to care that the Afghans are heroin addicts?

 

[turzovka]

One must understand some people do exist who really believe the type of utter stupidity written by someone who would rather make B.S excuses than acknowledge the true facts.

Here's a moron who has no idea the type of beastly sub-human operations that the Zionist working though the C.I.A. carry out in many nations all over the world.

Don't try to pretend that American terrorism is somehow civilized or decent. The Zionist have taught American useful idiots the type of satanic greed that has made them into savage barbarians.

Remove the secrecy and all the world will witness the type well thought out terrorism this besieged nation is responsible for.

The modern technology means nothing, and is no sign of being civilized.

The fundamental instincts and nature of those consumed by such wicked greed is far less than the lowest animal. It's the ability to think along with the nature of a savage that creates the worst type of evil. They are no longer human despite their appearance, and the word monster still falls short in describing these scoundrels.

An opium war is extremely destructive and the politicians need to be held accountable for all the torment they have caused America and all the other nations they destroy.

Don't be so quick to believe the population of those living in Afghanistan are treated any worst than the American people would be treated by sub-human greedy Zionist bankers and their politicians if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Don't think for a second gun control was ever meant to keep you safe.

Sorry, There are severe problems in all corners of the world, but I do not think we can offer anything to help you with yours. What a convoluted hatred you appear to foster.

 

[Blackrook]

We just need to get the fuck out.

 

[turzovka]

By Michaela Whitton

One of the many catastrophic legacies left behind by the longest war in U.S. history is that Afghanistan produces 90% of the world’s opium. As with most parts of the world, the most vulnerable pay the heaviest price of war, and the country has faced a harrowing escalation in the number of child heroin addicts.

“What’s happened in Afghanistan over the last 13 years has been the flourishing of a narco-state that is really without any parallel in history,” Kabul-based journalist Matthieu Aikins toldDemocracy Now back in 2014.

Adding that all levels of Afghan society are involved in the flourishing trade — which became undeniably worse after the U.S.-led invasion — Aikins accused both the Taliban and government-linked officials of profiting from the crisis. He claimed the U.S., in its quest for vengeance against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, not only cooperated with warlords but ignored corruption by criminals whose human rights abuses created the conditions that led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place.

As a result, Afghanistan now produces twice as much opium as it did in the year 2000, and the booming trade now accounts for 50% of the country’s GDP. Since the cartels began refining their poppy harvests into addictive and profitable heroin, the street price for “powder,” as it is known, is the cheapest in the world — and it costs less than food in the war-torn country.

Lost childhoods
The psychological damage of war, together with the flood of cheap heroin, has led to a doubling in addiction rates over the last five years. In the Channel 4 documentary, Unreported World, Ramita Naval explores a harrowing escalation in child addiction. In the ravaged country, where access to drug treatment is severely limited, she visits a rehabilitation centre where children as young four or five — haunted by horrors they have witnessed — attempt to regain lost childhoods.

The only treatment centre in Kabul to help children, it was originally set up to treat women. The 20-bed unit, which forces kids off the drugs by making them go cold turkey is, ironically, funded by the U.S. State Department. Naval is introduced to a number of very small children who are at varying stages of the 45-day treatment programme.

At one point, the reporter finds it hard to contain her dismay at being in a room full of drug-addicted children. One describes becoming addicted after taking the drug for toothache, while another became hooked after inhaling his father’s smoke. Doctor Latifa Hamidi said in the past two years she has seen a 60% increase in the number of child addicts at the centre. Claiming the future of the country is at stake, she added, “There is going to be a future generation of drug addicts that need help and aren’t going to be able to work.”

The problem is so severe among the child population that many are taking desperate measures to fund their habits. Naval spoke to a 13-year-old boy at a safe house who began using when his parents were killed by shelling. From the age of eight, he was paid by drug addicts to guard them while they smoked. Unsurprisingly, he then developed his own habit, which he funds with child prostitution. Many addicted children sell their bodies, as there are no jobs or work.

Fifteen-year-old Ali has been using heroin for the past two years. His mother is dead and his father fled to Iran. He smoked a gram of heroin, which cost £1, on camera as he explained how he became addicted.

The young boy’s trauma began when, after witnessing a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, he went to stay with relatives in the countryside. While he was there, U.S. forces bombed his village, killing dozens of people; he described seeing bodies scattered everywhere. The young boy and other villagers had to pick up the body parts and put them in plastic bags. Claiming the war breaks his heart — and making his descent into drug use more understandable — he said, “I’d rather not live, than live through this war.”

With drug use haram, or forbidden, in Islam, addiction is seen as shameful. Consequently, many of society’s most vulnerable are often too ashamed to ask for help. As a result, a hidden epidemic has arisen, affecting thousands of parents and children behind closed doors. Naval accompanies a medical team of doctors and social workers who are frequently attacked and beaten during their work:

“More and more children are becoming addicted because the country is awash with opium,” the doctor said. “If the government doesn’t do anything about this situation, Afghanistan is going to face another disaster,” she added.

Claiming that of 130,000 families in the area, 60% are addicted to drugs, the doctor explained many men pick up their addictions while working in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. After using drugs as a stimulant to help them work longer hours, they return, bringing their addictions with them — often passing their new habits on to entire families.

Opium is also part of daily life in Afghanistan’s refugee camps, where the internally displaced are left to fend for themselves. Government doctors rarely visit, and agencies are ill-equipped to deal with child addicts — many whom have fled fighting in other provinces and are left with devastating injuries as a result of the war. Locals claim that even if painkillers were available, opium is much cheaper and more effective.

Three-year-old Zarima lost her arm when her village was attacked during fighting between the government and insurgents. With no doctors or medicine, her father had no option but to give her opium. He had tried to stop the treatment a number of times, but she suffered severe withdrawal symptoms. Other locals described being forced to perform amputations due to lack of medical help.

Cheaper than food
Entire villages of people are addicted to opium, and Naval visits one family where three out of six of children are addicted. One little boy, who began smoking at the age of three, was sprawled out next to his father, completely out of it. He explained that he needs to smoke three times a day or he suffers painful withdrawals. When asked if he ever goes out and plays with other kids, he shook his head.

The boy’s mother originally gave him opium to cure a stomach ache. Now the family uses the drug for a very different reason. “There is not enough food to feed the whole family,” his mother said.“When you smoke you lose your appetite,” she added, explaining that while food for the family of nine costs £3 a day, a day’s worth of opium costs £2.

Summing up the hidden side of the devastation in the war-ravaged country, Naval was frank and said that while the world is focused on the fight against the Taliban, the country is being consumed from within — by an equally serious and long-term threat.

This article (The War in Afghanistan Has Turned a Generation
Source: The War in Afghanistan Has Turned a Generation of Children Into Heroin Addicts

Sin begets war and hell for the innocents.

A religion where it has fostered millions of intolerant, hateful, violent zealots turns its own people into suffering innocents. Then it exports its demonic ways on whoever they choose.

It is Islamic terrorism that terrorizes the world. Then we naturally must respond in some way to destroy or punish them. And then the country we do that in suffers horrendously, as did Germany and Japan. Are the allies to blame for the sufferings of the innocent citizens of despotic demonic regimes? Well surely not as much as the purveyors of hate and murder who begat these terrible times.

I did not come with a solution, unfortunately, but if there is one I am all for funding it.

 

[Moonglow]

One must understand some people do exist who really believe the type of utter stupidity written by someone who would rather make B.S excuses than acknowledge the true facts.

Here's a moron who has no idea the type of beastly sub-human operations that the Zionist working though the C.I.A. carry out in many nations all over the world.

Don't try to pretend that American terrorism is somehow civilized or decent. The Zionist have taught American useful idiots the type of satanic greed that has made them into savage barbarians.

Remove the secrecy and all the world will witness the type well thought out terrorism this besieged nation is responsible for.

The modern technology means nothing, and is no sign of being civilized.

The fundamental instincts and nature of those consumed by such wicked greed is far less than the lowest animal. It's the ability to think along with the nature of a savage that creates the worst type of evil. They are no longer human despite their appearance, and the word monster still falls short in describing these scoundrels.

An opium war is extremely destructive and the politicians need to be held accountable for all the torment they have caused America and all the other nations they destroy.

Don't be so quick to believe the population of those living in Afghanistan are treated any worst than the American people would be treated by sub-human greedy Zionist bankers and their politicians if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Don't think for a second gun control was ever meant to keep you safe.

Heroin and addiction was in Afghanistan many centuries before the US presence....

 

[Blackrook]

No, we need to leave. Up until World War II, America won all its wars, but at some point stupid people took over our military policy and we have lost every war ever since. Even Korea was just a cease-fire, and could restart at any time. So long as morons run our military policy, we can't win wars, so we should not get involved in any. We need to pull out of all our wars, roll up our foreign bases, and send our boys home. Let the British, French, Germans and Japanese take over the job of policing the world. We're just failing at it.

 

[Moonglow]

No, we need to leave. Up until World War II, America won all its wars, but at some point stupid people took over our military policy and we have lost every war ever since. Even Korea was just a cease-fire, and could restart at any time. So long as morons run our military policy, we can't win wars, so we should not get involved in any. We need to pull out of all our wars, roll up our foreign bases, and send our boys home. Let the British, French, Germans and Japanese take over the job of policing the world. We're just failing at it.

To much money to be made to let it go........

 

[Sunni Man]

The Taliban had just about eradicated poppy production in Afghanistan and stopped the drug trade.

But the western nations were loosing billions of dollars in lost revenue due to the Taliban shutting down the drug trade.

So using 9/11 as an excuse. The western nations invaded Afghanistan and helped restart poppy growing throughout the country.

Today poppy growing and opium production are at record levels thanks to the so called war on terror. .......

 

[Moonglow]

The Taliban had just about eradicated poppy production in Afghanistan.

The western nations were loosing billions of dollars in lost revenue due to the Taliban shutting down the drug trade.

So using 9/11 as an excuse. The western nations invaded Afghanistan and helped restart poppy growing throughout the country.

Today poppy growing and opium production are at record levels thanks to the so called war on terror. .......

You should really give accolades to the CIA for allowing such...

 

[Blackrook]

The Taliban had just about eradicated poppy production in Afghanistan and stopped the drug trade.

But the western nations were loosing billions of dollars in lost revenue due to the Taliban shutting down the drug trade.

So using 9/11 as an excuse. The western nations invaded Afghanistan and helped restart poppy growing throughout the country.

Today poppy growing and opium production are at record levels thanks to the so called war on terror. .......

Sunni Man, you're nothing if not predictable.

You can find no fault with any Muslim faction, even regressive retards like the Taliban.

 

[Sunni Man]

You can find no fault with any Muslim faction, even regressive retards like the Taliban.

It's a well documented fact that the Taliban had almost totally eradicated poppy production and stopped the drug trade in Afghanistan pre 9/11 ........

 

[Blackrook]

You can find no fault with any Muslim faction, even regressive retards like the Taliban.

It's a well documented fact that the Taliban had almost totally eradicated poppy production and stopped the drug trade in Afghanistan pre 9/11 ........

Then provide the documents, I'd like to see them.

 

[Sunni Man]

Then provide the documents, I'd like to see them.

"In July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns.

The Taliban enforced a ban on poppy farming via threats, forced eradication, and public punishment of transgressors. The result was a 99% reduction in the area of opium poppy farming in Taliban-controlled areas, roughly three quarters of the world's supply of heroin at the time."

Opium production in Afghanistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Blackrook]

There's a lot more to that article Sunni Man. You took two paragraphs, and left out all the rest.

 

[Sunni Man]

There's a lot more to that article Sunni Man. You took two paragraphs, and left out all the rest.

I posted the part that backed up my original statement.

Which was that the Taliban had stopped poppy growing and opium production pre 9/11 ........

 

[Blackrook]

There's a lot more to that article Sunni Man. You took two paragraphs, and left out all the rest.

I posted the part that backed up my original statement.

Which was that the Taliban had stopped poppy growing and opium production pre 9/11 ........

But yet there's more.