The rising prevalence of injecting drug users in Pakistan could create an HIV/AIDS crisis

J.T. Quigley

Pakistan, a country already tormented by regional insurgencies, is fighting a losing battle against a different kind of foe: drug addiction. In the country’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), an estimated 11 percent of residents use illicit substances – primarily heroin. Peshwar, the provincial capital of KPK, is a city rife with homeless addicts and dirty needles.

“Pakistan’s illegal drug trade is believed to generate $2 billion a year [making] Pakistan the most heroin-addicted country, per capita, in the world,” wrote David Browne, who covered the mujahideen insurgency in the 1980s, in a recent exposé for The Telegraph. “Peshawar is at the center of this phenomenon, in close proximity to extensive opium-poppy fields in the Afghan provinces of Badakhshan, Kunar and Nangarhar, and the rudimentary heroin-processing labs clustered around Landi Kotal in the adjoining Khyber tribal agency.”

The booming drug trade, which goes hand-in-hand with local Islamist groups, has transformed Peshwar from a city popular with tourists for its outdoor bazaars to a violence-ridden wasteland. Public offices are hidden behind extensive barricades and blast walls to protect from suicide bombers. Travelers have been replaced by derelicts, constantly in search of their next hit.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in a report titled “Drug Use in Pakistan 2013,” 6.7 million Pakistanis used drugs last year. A staggering 4.25 million are thought to be drug dependent. Drug rehabilitation programs and other treatments were provided for only 30,000 of the country’s addicts in 2013.

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