In Afghanistan, a country with a population of 30 million, there are now more than 1m addicts of one drug or another. Afghan youths are increasingly moving astray by becoming addicted to drugs. Every year thousands of deaths are caused inside Afghanistan due to consumption of drugs. This is blow to the future of this country which has already been destructed by decades of war. Drug addiction represents a major problem for the country, which produces 90 per cent of all opiates in the world. Until recently, though, it was not a major consumer, but this has changed over the past decade.

The drug addict, unfortunately, include a noteworthy number of women and children. In Afghanistan, normally, the addiction of women to tobacco or opium has been quite uncommon. But opium and other forms drugs are widely and easily available and with cheap price. This has made women and children more vulnerable to addiction. In country where 90 percent of world’s opium is produced, such annoying facts are not beyond expectations.

Recently the government has talked about decrement of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. There is zero poppy cultivation in a major number of provinces. But this applies to the peaceful province only as in the insecure regions of Afghanistan, poppy is still cultivated with no fear and worries of government. Since 2006, drug production in southern Helmand province has tripled, according to the UN. Its report says more than 75,000 hectares of Helmand were given over to opium cultivation last year, up from just 25,500 hectares in 2005.

Drugs are not only ruining lives of thousands human beings in Afghanistan and across the world but are also a major funding source for the Taliban insurgents and other criminal groups. The UNODC in 2011 estimated the opium trade may have earned the Taliban $700million (£460million), up from $200million (£130million) a year in the previous decade, with traffickers earning billions more.

Afghan drug production is killing the Afghans themselves. Even if the graph of poppy production goes drastically down, the Afghan society has been deeply impacted. It is the obligation of the government to take more serious and responsible measures to tackle the opium so that we can live a life free of drugs.