Drug use on the rise in Afghanistan

This building in the heart of Kabul is filled with squatters, most of them addicts who shoot up in the building’s basement. Getting hard drugs here is easier than getting bread or water, says one addict. Afghanistan exports 90% of the world’s opium but at least a bit apparently stays in the country. the primary US concern is how drug money is corrupting the country and fueling the insurgency, but the population is also vulnerable to drug use, according to the US Ambassador to Afghanistan. Two years ago, Afghanistan counted over a million drug users in the country and this Afghan government official says that number has mushroomed due to unemployment, insecurity and immigration. Two dollars a day will feed a habit says the government official. This woman says to keep working long hours in the field, she started smoking opium and now her and her five children are all addicted. Now she is clean. Her local mosque brought her to a women’s rehab center in the country, which is small and has only about 20 beds. She now has a job as a janitor, but only about 40 clinics operate in the country, meaning that woman is on the lucky side.