Afghanistan's home-grown drug problem

By Andrew North BBC correspondent in Kabul

Every Saturday morning, a crowd of men, young and old, gathers at the gate of a small, walled compound in south-west Kabul. If you were passing by, you would probably pay them little attention.

Kabul's Nejat centre has just 10 spaces to treat drug addicts

In fact, these are drug addicts, waiting in the hope of getting a place at the Nejat centre, the city's only specialist treatment facility for drug users.

Many of them are hooked on heroin, but people with addictions to painkillers, sleeping pills and other drugs are also common.

It is just one sign of a rapidly growing problem in the Afghan capital, which is causing the authorities growing alarm.

For years, the focus has been on the international trafficking of opium from Afghanistan's poppy fields - at least 75% of the world's supply comes from here.

According to the United Nations, that opium accounts for as much as 90% of the heroin consumed in Europe.

Just two years after the fall of the Taleban - who banned opium poppy cultivation - the country's illegal drugs trade has grown so big many believe it now threatens Afghanistan's stability.

Refined heroin - once rare inside Afghanistan - is a growing danger Click here for chart of Afghan opium poppy cultivation

Last year, the trade generated $2.3bn in revenue for traffickers, almost as much as the country received in aid.

This weekend, the Afghan government is hosting an international conference to try to get more support for tackling the problem.

But the impact is being felt and seen on the streets of Afghan cities too.

"It is a very, very serious issue," admits Mirwais Yassini, director general of the country's counter-narcotics bureau. "We are worried."

It is difficult to get accurate figures, but one estimate is that Kabul alone has at least 20,000 heroin addicts.

Smoking is still the most common method of consumption, but according to drugs experts, injecting is catching up fast, with all the attendant health fears.

Refugee habit

Until recently, the use of heroin - a 20th Century invention which can only be made with specialist chemicals - was relatively rare in Afghanistan, largely because most of the processing was done outside the country.

That has changed with the return of millions of refugees from neighbouring Pakistan and Iran.

Many became regular heroin users there and they have brought the practice and the demand home with them.

Staff at the Nejat centre - which first started work with refugees in Pakistan - say they make up the majority of their patients.

It's nearly impossible to cope with the facilities we have now Mohammed Raufi, Nejat treatment centre

Zalmay, a 23-year-old addict and former refugee, freely admits he has encouraged others to use heroin. "Just as I was misled in Iran," he says, "I have misled others."

Zalmay was one of the lucky ones who had got a place at the Nejat centre two weeks earlier.

Not only is it the only such facility in Kabul, it has just 10 beds for its six-week in-patient programme.

Staff also run education and advice programmes around the city, but they admit they are overwhelmed.

"It's nearly impossible to cope with the facilities we have now," says Mohammed Raufi, one of the managers.

"We hope to double the number of beds this year, but we need more money and more people."

'Far away problem'

But the Afghan government has been slow to acknowledge its own drugs problem, says Adam Boulokos, Afghan representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

"It was always something that was far, far away for them. 'It's a European problem, yes we grow this stuff, but we really don't care what happens on the streets of London or Paris.'

The centre is running an ad-hoc needle exchange for drug users

"But now that there's an increase in drugs use here, people are very, very concerned."

Another concern is with the potential spread of HIV/Aids, hepatitis and other infections, because many addicts are sharing needles.

The Nejat centre runs an ad-hoc needle exchange, handing out new ones for used ones. But staff know they are only reaching a few users.

No statistics on the issue are available, but anecdotal evidence suggests there is cause for real alarm.

"I never shared a needle, I knew the risks," Ghulam, one addict undergoing treatment at the Nejat centre told BBC News.

"But many of my friends do. They just wipe the needle with a cloth then pass it on."

The centre's Mr Raufi said: "I don't know about HIV, but we have seen more cases of Hepatitis A and B."

As this weekend's conference highlights the risk to Afghanistan's political and economic future from the drugs trade if it is not brought under control, many also want to focus on the threat to its people.

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