[R-G] It's easy for soldiers to score heroin in Afghanistan

[Anthony Fenton]

It's easy for soldiers to score heroin in Afghanistan

Simultaneously stressed and bored, U.S. soldiers are turning to the  
widely available drug for a quick escape.

By Shaun McCanna

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/08/07/afghan_heroin/

Aug. 7, 2007 | BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- Just outside the main gate to  
Bagram airfield, a U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, sits a  
series of small makeshift shops known by locals as the Bagram Bazaar.  
For Afghans, it is the place to buy American goods, but the stalls  
that make up the heart of the bazaar are also well known for what  
they provide American soldiers stationed at Bagram. Walking through  
the bazaar it takes less than 10 minutes for a vendor in his early  
20s to step out and ask, "You want whiskey?" "No, heroin," I tell  
him. He ushers me into his store with a smile.

The shop is small, 9 feet wide by 14 feet deep, and dark. The walls  
at the front are lined with dusty cans of soda, padlocks and  
miscellaneous beauty supplies. As we enter, a teenager is visible at  
the back, seated in a chair next to a collection of American military  
knives and flashlights. The shopkeeper speaks to him in Dari. The  
teen stands and heads for the door, where he stops and asks my Afghan  
driver a question. My driver translates, "He wants to know how much  
you want? Twenty, 30, 50 dollars' worth?" From past experience, for I  
have arranged this same transaction a dozen times in a dozen  
different Bagram Bazaar shops, I know that the $30 bag will contain  
enough pure to bring hundreds of dollars on the streets of any  
American city. Afghanistan, after all, is the source of 90 percent of  
the world's heroin. I say 30 and the teen jogs off.

The true extent of the heroin problem among American soldiers now  
serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is unknown. At Bagram, according to a  
written statement provided by a spokesperson for the base, Army Maj.  
Chris Belcher, the "Military Police receive few reports of alcohol or  
drug issues." The military has statistics on how many troops failed  
drug tests, but the best information on long-term addiction comes  
from the U.S. Veterans Administration. The VA is the world's largest  
provider of substance abuse services, caring for more than 350,000  
veterans per year, of whom about 30,000 are being treated for opiate  
addiction. Only preliminary information for Iraq and Afghanistan is  
available, however, and veterans of those conflicts are not yet  
showing up in the stats. According to the VA's annual "Yellowbook"  
report on substance abuse, during Fiscal Year 2006, fewer than 9,000  
veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom  
(Afghanistan) sought treatment for substance abuse of all kinds at  
the VA; the report did not specify how many were treated for opiate  
abuse.

Experts think it could be a decade before the true scope of heroin  
use in Iraq and Afghanistan is known. Dr. Jodie Trafton, a healthcare  
specialist with the VA's Center for Health Care Evaluation in Palo  
Alto, Calif., says it takes five or 10 years after a conflict for  
veterans to enter the system in significant numbers. The VA has  
recently seen a surge in cases from the first U.S. war in Iraq.  
"We're just starting to get a lot of Gulf War veterans," she  
explains. For the first few years after a conflict, it's hard to  
gauge the number of soldiers who've developed a substance problem.  
Young soldiers especially, says Dr. Trafton, tend not to seek  
treatment unless pushed by family members. Left to their own devices,  
"usually people don't show up for treatment till much later."

The anecdotal information, however, suggests there may be a wave of  
new patients coming, and it will include many heroin users. I'm a  
filmmaker, and I have been to Afghanistan several times to research a  
film about a soldier who died there under murky circumstances. Before  
his death, the soldier, John Torres, had told friends and family of  
widespread heroin use at Bagram. Based on my own experience, despite  
the hundreds of millions of dollars the Bush administration has spent  
on opium poppy eradication, Torres was right. I asked to buy heroin a  
dozen times during two trips a year apart and never heard the word  
"no"; I also saw ample evidence that soldiers were trading sensitive  
military equipment, like computer drives and bulletproof vests, for  
drugs. Other soldiers who have served at Bagram agree: Heroin, they  
say "is everywhere." And although they haven't shown up in the  
statistics yet, reports from methadone clinics suggest the VA's  
future patients may already be back in the States in force. Much like  
the caskets that return to the Dover Air Force base in the dead of  
night, America's new addicts are returning undetected.

Back in the States, it is not difficult to find a soldier who has  
returned from Afghanistan with an addiction. Nearly every veteran of  
Operation Enduring Freedom I have spoken with was familiar with  
heroin's availability on base, and most knew at least one soldier who  
used while deployed. In June, I spent a week in Southern California  
talking to veterans who had used while in Afghanistan. Getting one of  
them to talk to me on the record, however, was tougher.

When I ask soldiers and veterans to go public about their  
experiences, they are wary. "No, I'm still in the reserves," said  
one. "I don't want you to write about me," said another. "I'm still  
in." Some soldiers from Bagram I've spoken with in the past several  
years I can no longer find. Maybe they're in jail, maybe on the  
street. Others may have redeployed. "I heard their unit was getting  
sent back to Afghanistan," I'm told, "so maybe they're over there."

The soldiers keep quiet because they're concerned about their fellow  
soldiers. As a veteran of Afghanistan told me, "These are my  
brothers. I wouldn't want to say anything that would bring disrespect  
down on them."

But they also don't want to get in trouble with the military for  
talking to the media. They believe that tarnishing the military's  
image would bring far more consequences than actually getting caught  
for using.

[...]

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