International
Afghan heroin being dumped in Pakistan
By B. Muralidhar Reddy
ISLAMABAD, DEC. 5. One of the side effects of America's war against Afghanistan in Pakistan is the alarming rise in the availability of heroin, being dumped by Afghan drug barons.
The United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) has reported that the price of heroin in Karachi has dropped to less than $1 per gm, raising fears of a rise in heroin consumption in the city.
The number of drug addicts in Pakistan had risen dramatically after the decade-long proxy war between the United States and the erstwhile Soviet Union during 1979-89. Parts of Pakistan became havens of drug production and only last year, the country gained `poppy free' status.
Of immediate concern is a rise in the number of addicts who can now afford to inject heroin, which requires a larger quantity of the drug, readily available at a street cost of 80 U.S. cents per gm. Dr. Saleem Azam, head of the
Karachi-based drug rehabilitation NGO, Pakistan Society, feared a rise in HIV infection if injecting and needle-sharing became more frequent.
According to U.N. officials, although Afghanistan's Taliban regime had banned poppy cultivation in 1999, opium stockpiles from past production had remained untouched. Dr. Azam blamed the influx of illicit drugs on the breakdown of law and order in Afghanistan.
An official from Pakistan's anti-narcotic force told IRIN that the price of one kg of heroin on the Afghan border had dropped from $2,916 to $2,460 since the U.S.-led bombardment. Last year's national assessment survey by the U.N. Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), estimated that there were 500,000 chronic heroin addicts in Pakistan.
Most were men between the ages of 25 and 35, living in cities in Sindh, Punjab and Baluchistan provinces. The report concluded that Pakistan had one of the highest rates of heroin abuse documented. Last year's survey had already recorded ``a strong upward trend in injecting'' among addicts before the recent drop in price.
Local experts maintain that heroin addiction has had other negative effects on communities in Pakistan.
``With the influx of heroin, there must be a flood of illegal weapons in the country too. These two elements are integral to each other,'' Mr. Naveed Baseer, a human rights activist told IRIN, referring to the traditionally close links between arms smuggling and drug trafficking in the region.
The U.S. State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement announced on November 6, a $73 million plan to reinforce Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
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