In the past five years the number of people using heroin in Afghanistan has risen 140 percent, and opium addiction has gone up by over 50 percent, according to a new drug survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
About one million Afghans - 8 percent of the population aged 15-64 - are addicted to drugs: 120,000 to heroin and 230,000 to opium, said the survey released on 21 June.
“After three decades of war-related trauma, unlimited availability of cheap narcotics and limited access to treatment have created a major, and growing, addiction problem in Afghanistan,” Antonio Maria Costa, UNODC’s executive director, said in a press release.
Afghanistan is the world’s top narcotics producing country and illicit drug money, UNODC says, fuels armed insurgency and criminality.
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About one million Afghans - 8 percent of the population aged 15-64 - are addicted to drugs: 120,000 to heroin and 230,000 to opium, said the survey released on 21 June.
“After three decades of war-related trauma, unlimited availability of cheap narcotics and limited access to treatment have created a major, and growing, addiction problem in Afghanistan,” Antonio Maria Costa, UNODC’s executive director, said in a press release.
Afghanistan is the world’s top narcotics producing country and illicit drug money, UNODC says, fuels armed insurgency and criminality.
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