Heroin Addicts On The Rise In Kabul

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - FEBRUARY 10: Fazel Rahman, a heroin addict lays in a city morgue after overdosing on heroin February 10, 2009 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Heroin addicts are on the increase in Kabul as the numbers of unemployed increase and the drug continues to be readily available and extremely cheap at only 50 afghany per hit or $1 USD. Afghanistan accounts for more than 90 per cent of the world's heroin supply. Its annual opium harvest is worth up to $3bn, or almost half the country's official gross domestic product. Profits from heroin fund the Taliban, along with corrupt Afghan officials who profit from it. Recently the Obama's US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke stated that the US counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan "may be the single most ineffective program in the history of foreign policy." Many Afghans have come back from Iran working in blue collar labor jobs already addicted. There are 1.6 million addicts in Iran according to the UN office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) all dependent on the heroin supplies coming from neighboring Afghanistan. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)