REHABISTAN - PART 3Queuing for Recovery at Heroin's Ground Zero
TEXT BY JEREMY KELLY, PHOTOS BY TRAVIS BEARD
 utside of Kabul it’s tougher to prevent and treat drug abuse. The relatively peaceful north of the country produces many of the famous Afghan carpets, as well as a younger generation of drug users. A UNODC national project officer we met, Mohammad Aqa Stanikzai, told us that “when mothers are weaving carpets, they might not have the time to look after their children. So if the child starts crying, they make a solvent from opium to pacify them.” Others use it for relief from the aches produced by monotonous hours behind the loom.
One family we met in a village called Tokahi, near the Uzbek border, was so poor they had sold their loom to buy food and support their opium habit. The husband now works as a laborer and most of the $1 to $1.50 a day he earns is spent on opium for himself, his wife, and his children.
 The mother, who didn’t give her name, admitted to getting her children hooked but said she knew no better and had no other choice. “Until one month ago we had no services to buy medicine. It’s 60 kilometers to the nearest pharmacy and most of the opium is given to us, free. We didn’t know it was bad for them.” In the western city of Herat a mother spoke openly about her and her daughter’s opium addiction. They have been using for about a year. The mother started to combat depression after the death of her husband, who had been a drug user for 25 years. She introduced the drug to her daughter to cure pain in her leg. The daughter’s habit keeps her revolving out of school and into rehab.
TO BE CONTINUED:
REHABISTAN | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Nov 11, 2009 wrote:
you never see trees or grass in these hellhole | | Anonymous, on Sep 1, 2009 wrote:
no wonder they are so fucking pissed at us and want to Jihad our asses | | Anonymous, on Aug 10, 2009 wrote:
there is a 12 step fellowship that is worldwide | | Anonymous, on Aug 10, 2009 wrote:
potato needs to be mashed. Wah wah wah like the world isn’t a bad place because of bad people,like most of you.Don’t worry eugenics is coming your way,so you wont have to look and think about things too much longer. | |
| potato, on Aug 8, 2009 wrote:
Crunk city
God rest your soul,’cos i fucking wont ! | | |
| potato, on Aug 8, 2009 wrote:
About methadone,right on !
i left a smack habit for a
physeptone (methadone) habit,
so so hard to come off !.
Went to prison & got off.
(really not as easy as i write !)
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| potato, on Aug 8, 2009 wrote:
The Russian army (when it left)took
thousands of heroin addicts with
it.I believe that it was the begining
of the ’russian mafia’.
once the ready supply of poppy based
drugs was denied to them they used
the infrastructure of the military to
import & distribute & sell heroin !.
History !!!!. | |
| komodo, on Aug 7, 2009 wrote:
damn. shotgunning for kids. that’s so fucked up i never would have thought it existed. i guess the daughter already got hers. it would be one way to do things when you couldn’t get a babysitter at a moment’s notice. | |
| DoubleJ, on Aug 7, 2009 wrote:
this does not surprise me. | | Anonymous, on Aug 7, 2009 wrote:
about methadone, it is more addictive, the shit gets in your bones and takes a month to kick, it is like trying to cure whiskey addiction with vodka, methadone is shit, avoid avoid. | | Anonymous, on Nov 11, 2008 wrote:
heroin all the cool kids are doing it. | | |
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