Balkh Drug Addicts Face Grim Future

Aziz Ahmad, 28, is sitting by the roadside in Mazar-e-Sharif, begging passersby for money. He is wearing dirty and torn clothes, and seems exhausted and hopeless.



Aziz said he began using drugs when he was a refugee in Iran. He had recently undergone a 20-day rehabilitation course in the city’s only drug treatment centre, but soon relapsed into his former ways.



“I was making good progress, I was recovering,” he told IWPR. “But after 20 days the doctors told me to go home, they needed the bed for another addict. My condition deteriorated once I got home. I had nothing to eat and no medicine. Before long I was forced to start taking drugs again.”



Aziz would like to get free of the drugs that are ruining his life, but does not see how he can do it.



“Escape from this menace does not take 20 days or a month,” he said. “The patient has to be under medical treatment for a year.”



Addiction is on the rise in the north, fueled by easy access to drugs, the return of refugees from Iran, and the increasing use of opiates by women who weave carpets.



The lack of adequate treatment facilities means that many of these people have nowhere to turn if they want to give up their addiction.



Government officials say that the number of addicts has increased 50 per cent in the past year because there’s just the one treatment centre for the whole of Balkh province. The 20-bed facility, they say, cannot begin to cope with demand. Most of the patients are forced to leave long before they are ready; as a consequence, say medical professionals, at least 40 per cent return to drug use.



“This hospital, which should treat thousands, has a mere 20 beds,” said Dr Asadullah, acting head of the treatment centre. “We also have no recreation facilities for the patients, which is a problem during the treatment phase. And we do not have enough staff or financial resources to allow us to work properly.”



The hospital has treated about 600 men, women, and children, he added, and its entire staff consisted of two doctors, two nurses and five orderlies.



“Sometimes the number of addicts increases so sharply that they have to wait days for a bed,” he continued. “Often the patient loses hope and never comes back.”



A large number of addicts are returning refugees from Iran, added Dr Asadullah. The other major group is women carpet-weavers, who use hashish or opium to relieve their boredom. They also feed drugs to their children, to keep them quiet while they work.



“I think I became dependent on drugs while I was still in my mother’s womb,” Maryam, 30, said. “My mother was a carpet-weaver, and she used hashish. When I was small she did not want me to bother her, so she fed me more hashish. Now I am using it myself.”



Maryam said that she had tried the hospital, but didn’t get the treatment she was promised.



Mirwais Rabi, head of Balkh’s department of public health, acknowledged the problem. He told IWPR that the Germans had promised to build a well-equipped, 400-bed hospital, but could not say when it might be built.



Dr Abdullah Fahim, spokesperson for the public health ministry in Kabul, said that they are planning another 20-bed hospital in Balkh and one in Kunduz, to help relieve some of the pressure.



“This should have happened earlier, but there was no budget for it,” he told IWPR. “We have pursued this aggressively, and if we cannot find a government building, we will rent a private space.”



One factor complicating the recovery process is the easy availability of drugs in Mazar-e-Sharif. Addicts say they have no difficulty getting supplies.



“The authorities are tied up with the drug sellers and they do not arrest them,” said Habibullah, an addict. “They sell drugs openly in the Kefayat market, right in the middle of Mazar.”



Sher Jan Durrani, spokesperson for the Balkh police department, dismissed Habibullah’s claim that officials are in league with the dealers.



“Statements by addicts are baseless,” he said. “They are addicts – they can say anything they want. We arrested dozens of drug dealers last year, and now it is not as easy as they say to buy drugs.”



The head of Balkh’s counter-narcotics department, Khalil Rahman, confirmed the increase in the number of addicts. “This has been a difficult challenge,” he told IWPR. “The rise in the number of addicts was totally unpredicted.”



Rahman did, however, deny that drugs were traded openly in Mazar-e-Sharif. “Drugs are smuggled in from Pakistan and sold secretly in the city,” he said.



But addicts like Habibullah, Maryam, and Aziz Ahmad have no difficulty finding what they need, and the government seems powerless to stop them.



“If the government does not do something, the day will come when all carpet weavers are addicted to hashish and heroin,” said Maryam.



Abdul Latif Sahak is an IWPR trainee in Mazar-e-Sharif.