Nearly 1m Afghans suffer from drug addiction

Nearly 1 million Afghans have been suffering from drug addiction, according to a report issued here on Saturday. "Afghanistan has close to one million adult drug users with a particularly high annual opiate prevalence amongst the adult population of 2.7 percent, similar to countries like Russia and Iran .. between 2005 and 2009, the numbers of regular opium and heroin users increased by 53 percent and 140 percent respectively, " said a report of Afghan Counter-Narcotics Ministry issued with technical support of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The Afghanistan Drug Report 2012 also said the drug users are financially burdened by their addictions with total spending on drug use averaging 300 million U.S. dollars annually in the country. The report highlights key achievements in the development of institutional and policy frameworks in response to illicit drugs in the war-torn country. At the same time, the report shows that "the cultivation, trafficking and use of illicit drugs remain critical challenges for Afghanistan resulting in significant negative social, economic and political impacts," "Also, the number of drug treatment centers increased by 58 percent between 2009 and 2012 but overall capacity remains low covering only 5.9 percent of the opium and heroin users in the country," the report noted. The insurgency-hit Afghanistan remains the main producer of opium as about 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw material used in manufacturing heroin, is produced in this country.