Heroin Addiction in Quetta

By J.B. Russell
Photojournalist
Quetta, Pakistan.  
20 October 2001

When the bombing of Afghanistan was inaccessible, anti-American demonstrations started getting repetitive and closed borders prevented refugees fleeing the conflict from entering Pakistan, what does a photojournalist do?  Drugs of course.  

Afghanistan is by far the largest producer of opium poppies, the raw material for the fabrication of heroin, growing some 70% of the world's supply.  For years this illicit crop and its by products have helped finance the violence in Afghanistan.  Despite being officially banned by the Taliban, it provided desperately needed cash to the regime as well as to an impoverished population with virtually no economy.  We hear a great deal about the war on drugs and the devastation that drug addiction wreaks on western societies - the primary market for narcotics consumption.  However the human and social ills that are the consequence of heroin use are not limited to the West.  

The countries that are on the doorstep of Afghanistan and that act as production and transit points for the global heroin trade are also the victims of heroin use themselves.  Quetta is no exception.  Many of the hundreds of street addicts in Quetta are Afghan refugees, veterans of the region’s seemingly endless conflicts and victims of the resulting poverty.  They fall into the downward spiral of drug use as their only means of escape from their abject existence.  Others are Pakistani that use drugs for some of the same reasons, while some are educated with jobs and families but nevertheless lose everything to the drug.

 
Most of the addicts of Quetta live and consume in the underpasses of the city's sewage canals where the living and sanitary conditions are deplorable.  Others live in tombs and caves of one of the city's cemeteries.  There are a few associations that attempt to help the addicts directly and by disseminating information to reduce the risk of diseases associated with drug use, but these organizations receive very little funding from the government or private donors.  While some services are free, most require the addicts or their families to pay a small monthly fee.  This makes the treatment beyond the means of the vast majority of the addicts.

J.B. Russell
Photojournalist
9, rue Feutrier
75018 Paris, FRANCE
tel/fax:+33 1 46 06 48 59
mobile: +33 6 07 94 22 64
RoadtoNowhere@compuserve.co