KABUL — Use of opiates such as heroin and opium has doubled in Afghanistan in the past five years as hundreds of thousands of Afghans have turned to drugs to escape the misery of poverty and war, the United Nations said Monday.
Nearly 3 percent of Afghans age 15 to 64 are addicted to opiates, according to a study by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The U.N. defines addicts as regular users. That puts Afghanistan, along with Russia and Iran, among the top three countries for opiate drug use worldwide, according to Sarah Waller, an official of the U.N.’s drug office in Kabul. She said a 2005 survey found about 1.4 percent of Afghan adults were opiate addicts.
The entrenchment of drugs in the lives of ordinary Afghans creates yet another barrier to international efforts to combat the drug trade, which helps pay for the Taliban insurgency. The Associated Press
