These days, most people in our country are pretty well aware indeed, about the horrors of drug use, especially something as ruthlessly addictive as Heroin; this is arguably the single most lethal and addictive drug ever invented. Unfortunately, is is a whole lot more freely available today than the party drugs such as Ex and cocaine.
In truth, this is the poor man’s drug thanks to the onslaught of opium and by default Heroin that make its way into Pakistan during the Afghan war in the 70s and 80s.
We have only to thank Zia’s flawed polices due to which we have so many addicts rotting on our roads when the very name of the drug was a mystery back in the swinging 70s era.
And speaking of its invention, at the time of creation it was marketed as the most powerful painkiller in its time (more powerful, even then morphine) with doctors being led to believe that they would be able to achieve ‘heroic’ results when they use it. However, the patents it was used on quickly showed the dark nightmare that this drug is.
Please note the above with care, because this is something most people don’t know at all. But pushers are very well aware of the harsh reality of this horrid drug. Pushers who illegally sell such drugs understand the body language of teens very well indeed and can detect lonely teenagers and those who look depressed easily because such people are their natural pray. A drug pusher is not a friend… But the worst enemy you may ever have! All the sympathy he shows you is a mask and as such totally fake, because this drug would make you totally dependent on him and once in his control he will make you steal, rob and perhaps even kill just so that you can get the next dose. And the more you take it the more you would crave it and the more you want it the more expensive he will make it for you. It’s a vicious circle and very difficult to get out of, once you are in.
Once hooked, there is almost no way to let the drug loosen its hold on you, except long and painful rehabilitation. There, the doctors attempt to cure addicts by making them quit it for life and the agony of the withdrawal symptoms is a sight terrible to behold. However, this is easier said than done because Heroin does not let go easily and the withdrawal symptoms are extremely difficult and painful to say the least.
And even after successful rehabilitation, once the former addict is trying to go back to his or her former life, there is a very big chance that he or she just might suffer a relapse and the addiction will come back once again, even more stronger than before.
There is nothing even remotely ‘cool’ about being a broken shell of your former self. The only way to avoid this is to make sure that you never ever become part of such groups where they use Heroin unless you want your future utterly destroyed on the altar of a myopic dictator’s ‘vision’ of what Pakistan ‘should’have been.
Most drugs come from Afghanistan, the country responsible for at least 75% of the world’s heroin. The UNODC calculates that over 800,000 Pakistanis between the ages of 15 and 64 use heroin regularly. It is also estimated that up to 44 tons of processed heroin are consumed annually in Pakistan