Opium grips Afghanistan

KABUL — Shereen placed a ball of pure opium on a small piece of foil she pulled from a cigarette pack. Balancing the foil with shaky hands, she heated the bottom until the paste turned to crystal, sending sweet smelling smoke through a dangling cigarette deep into her lungs.

After a second hit, a whimper escaped her parched lips.

“I can’t tell how long I’ve been using,” said the woman, her hands now steady as a calm spread outward from her glazed eyes, warming her entire body from head to toe.

Dr. Hakim Shaesta looked on, helpless, throughout the entire episode that took place in Shereen’s tiny home in a run-down neighborhood of Kabul known for the crime that often accompanies opiate addiction.

Shereen accepted some vitamins from Dr. Shaesta, a female physician who runs the Sanga Amaj drug treatment facility for women.

If only she could get Shereen to the center, she could do so much more. She could help Shereen through the terror of opium withdrawal, the paranoid delusions, cold chills and hot sweats, the ribs aching from dry heaves that continue long after convulsing spasms of vomit leave the stomach empty.

As the pain of withdrawal eased, Dr. Shaesta would be there to help Shereen resist the call of opium, which sells for pennies, cheaper than the tobacco needed for a single cigarette.

“My husband won’t let me go to the clinic, and if he knew anyone was here he would kill me,” said Shereen, who like many Afghans, uses one name.

Nearly seven years after the Bush administration ousted Afghanistan’s fanatic Taliban rulers, a growing curse of opium addiction reflects an unintended consequence of America’s attempt to prevent another Sept. 11 attack.

It grips men, women, children and even tiny babies, who are fed opium to ease hunger when no food is available.

First lady Laura Bush has made the liberation of Afghan women a personal cause, especially opening schools for girls who were forbidden by the Taliban from learning to read and write.

“More than 5 million children are in school, almost 2 million of them girls,” the first lady told the U.S.-Afghan Women’s council roundtable at Georgetown University earlier this year.

With the future of Afghan women and girls close to her heart, Mrs. Bush delivered a similar message during a brief visit to Afghanistan in June. Yet it is difficult to imagine Mrs. Bush or any U.S. official protected by layers of security ever seeing women and children addicts imprisoned in sun-baked mud homes by overbearing male relatives.

Hidden plague

Nevertheless, Afghan and U.S. narcotics officials, human rights activists and Afghan intelligence personnel interviewed by The Washington Times are beginning to take notice.

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