While new construction is visible in Kabul, the city itself is pocketed with destitution. At a small clinic supported by Japanese and German NGOs, healthcare workers are fighting to help a wide population of desperately poor refugees from Pakistan and Iran who have been forced to return, some after more than a decade.

Despite its famous role as a worldwide supplier of opium and heroin, Afghanistan has lacked a domestic drug abuse problem, outside of hashish use by a Muslim population denied alcohol. But after millions of Afghans fled in the 1980s for the safety of neighboring countries, they came in contact with cultures more prone to drug use.

Dr. Tariq Suliman founded the Nejat Center, Afghanistan's only private drug rehabilitation center, in 1991 in Peshawar, Pakistan. After the fall of the Taliban, he was able to expand operations into Afghanistan with the help of the international community. He says almost all of his patients -- about 100 at a time -- are returning refugees who cultivated their opium or heroin addictions abroad. Suliman estimates there are 50,000 addicts in Kabul alone, and tens of thousands more returning each year from Iran and Pakistan.

He explains that Afghanistan's drug abuse problem stems from drug dealers in Pakistan trying to find a new market for heroin. "But it is also a variety of factors, including depression over 30 years of war," he says. "Some people were wounded in fighting. Others worked in carpet factories and were given opium. Others gave it to their children to keep them quiet while they worked. In Iran, many people are high-quality-opium users. As more Afghans became employed in domestic labor, the owners would slowly addict them to opium to make them more manageable. Employees would then ask for less money and more opium to work."

Thanks to Suliman, the Nejat Center has successfully adapted techniques from Western recovery programs, such as counseling and detox programs, to Afghan culture. The waiting list is 1,600 people. On this day, one of the lucky ones is Zamaad, 32, who started using heroin in Pakistan, where "it is everywhere and very easy to find." He is sitting on a carpet, watching hygiene videos with six other men. He's proud of his success in reducing his habit from about $8 a day to $2 a day. Considering that 80 percent of the world's heroin is grown and produced nearby, $8 a day buys a lot of nearly pure heroin.

"I have made a strong decision to stop destroying my body," he says. "When I talk to relatives and friends, none of them trust me because they know I am an addict. Everyone in my family is always looking at me with shame because I am an addict."

Zamaad wants to get married, but his parents won't give him their permission until he quits his eight-year habit. "They say, how can I be engaged when I spend all my money on drugs? They say when I quit and they trust me again, they will engage me to be married," he says.

Zamaad faces another harsh reality. The Taliban killed one of his brothers and other one died of cancer. His parents are getting older and he needs to take care of them. "I am now the only one to take care of my family," he says. "I have to leave those friends that turned me this way. I have decided on a new change and a fresh new life."

Change doesn't sound as good to Zainallah, 44, who came to the center from the eastern city of Jalalabad after a 24-year love affair with heroin, which he started using in Pakistan. He is angry about having to quit: He used two to three grams of pure heroin a day, costing about $14. He's down to a daily $3 habit, but seems to miss it.

"It is such a difficult life to use heroin and sell sheep," he says, referring to the fact that he can't afford heroin. "This drug is for rich people to play and have a good time. I have no money. My economic problems are too big to use heroin anymore."

Across town at the Kabul Weekly, an English-language paper, editor in chief Faheem Dashty acknowledges the litany of problems facing Afghanistan. He laments the baleful influence of the warlords on the country's burgeoning government. "People who suffered at the hands of the mujahedin don't want to see them in Parliament," he says. But those same people, he adds, "were strong in the fight against the Soviets, the Taliban and against al-Qaida. So considering all this country has gone through, the situation is not so bad. We've had a chance to elect representatives for the first time in our history."

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