Grip of the Dragon - Pakistan

July 2007
The production of opium in Pakistan has plummeted thanks to a 15 year eradication programme. The shattering irony is that in the same 15 years Pakistan has gone from a nation of almost no drug users to the one with the most heroin addicts in the world. Martin Adler follows the addicts to the slims and sewers of Pakistan's cities and analyses the social traumas induced by drug addiction. Still more disturbing - evidence that rural labourers are being paid in heroin, making them slaves to the drug.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• opium
• heroin
• Pakistan
• Martin
• Adler
• journeyman
• pictures
• news
• documentary
• current affairs
• journeyman pictures

[autogic]

Why are people so NAIVE???? Don't we all know who is controlling the poppy growth in Afghanistan. Don't we all know who is KARZAI ?? What is his and his family business. Don't we all know what the US forces are protecting there. Don't we all know container loads of these drugs are being shifted in the protection of US armed forces. This is the the truth we don't want to know. Please try to get to the grass route.

[faltenelli]

Don´t you know that the users are the real problem ?

If you destroy one field they will be looking for the next one .. and believe me, they´ll find it.

A former addict.

[maxten]

the government should offer alternatives to poppy crops. there should be a program for exchanging opium crops for other crops (food). as the world population grows, the demand is growing. they should try growing commodities crops.

[zubairalihussain]

Eradication success my ass. All the lost crop from Pakistan has been transferred to the existing production in Afghanistan, and then some. And Afghanistan is basically Pakistan's Canada, or Vietnam's Cambodia given as an anology. I'd say it has an even more closer, borderless relationship than more than any two countries in the world. Afghanistan is an extension of Pakistan. They are basically one country de facto.

[zubairalihussain]

Drug use will never be eliminated. It is naive and foolish to believe so. The best and most humane and most Islamic way of dealing with this problem is to legalize all drugs and implement rehabilitation services and harm reduction programs. This way, the harm caused to society will be greatly reduced if not nearly eliminated, and addicts can be treated humanely and as patients rather than criminals. After all it is a health problem.

[andria3a]

@faltenelli

I would have thought in Afghanistan most addicts would not have the capacity to get to the fields...

[xmerterror]

Pakistan Opium is best in world...if u got genuine

[socalhippie420]

@iuriSalvador judge not or be judged man!!!

[iuriSalvador]

@socalhippie420 i go to hell just like everyone including you.