Afghanistan's poppy problem

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2021

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Laila Haidari set up Kabul's first independent drug rehabilitation centre in 2010. Having helped her own brother to quit his heroin addiction she wanted to help others. More than 80% of the world's illegal opium and heroin comes from Afghanistan. International criminal groups have exploited years of warfare and lawlessness to expand production, but the insecurity has also led to poverty and increased drug addiction inside Afghanistan. Laila Haidari explains to Rebecca Kesby how local people have been affected.

(PHOTO: An Afghan farmer harvests opium sap from a poppy field in the Surkh Rod district of Nangarhar province in 2018. The US government has spent billions of dollars on a war to eliminate drugs from Afghanistan, but the country still remains the world's top opium producer. (Credit NOORULLAH SHIRZADA/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds.
0:29.2	Hello and welcome to this witness history podcast from the BBC World Service
0:37.9	with me Rebecca Kesby. More than 80% of the world's illegal opium and heroin comes from Afghanistan.
0:45.7	International criminal groups have exploited years of warfare and lawlessness to expand
0:50.8	production, but the insecurity has also led to poverty and increased drug addiction
0:56.2	inside Afghanistan. I've been speaking to one woman who's made it her life's work to help those
1:01.6	affected.
1:04.0	My brother's wife contacted me and said,
1:08.0	My brother's wife contacted me and said,
1:10.0	your brother is a drug addict.
1:12.0	I was really shocked.
1:14.0	Lila Hadari set up the first independent drug rehabilitation center in Kabul in
1:20.0	2010. She was inspired to do so because of her brother Hakim's addiction.
1:25.4	The whole family was affected by it.
1:30.6	I was trying to hide Hakim's addiction from my husband's family because of the shame of it
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.