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National Geographic : 1981 May
Contents
together with Afghanistan, tied in a knot of boundaries not many miles from where the highway goes through the pass, this 500 mile-long retrace of the old Silk Road is of immense strategic importance. Roads in Pakistan are like that. Paved with intrigue. Roads chockablock with bus es and trucks so lavishly decorated with sparkling gimcrackery that they look like circus calliopes. Desert roads that carry drug-laden cars in the night. Pakistan has become a major artery in the "My ribs like rafters...." So the young GautamaBuddha,after a periodof asceti cism, described himself. A third-century sculpture of the "FastingBuddha," one of Pakistan'smost valued artistictreasures, reposes in the LahoreMuseum. Mud walls offamily compounds in a vil lage (right)near Quetta attest to the de sirefor privacy. Wheat and tobacco fields liefallow till spring. vast and sinister network of international narcotics traffic. "Until four years ago, the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia was the leading producer of opium for export," Reza Husnain, former director of operations of the Pakistan Narcotics Control Board, said. "But that distinction now belongs to the Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan area, and the disturbances in the first two mean that Paki stan's potential may be exploited further." Until recently, Husnain explained, most of the opium was grown in Afghanistan and marketed through Pakistan. "Now it is the other way," he said. "Not too long ago we in tercepted 250 kilograms of morphine being transported on a road from Quetta to Iran. Hauls of such size were unheard of before the troubles in Afghanistan and Iran." In addition to that, he said, the closing of the opium shops has added to the problem. Under British rule, and continuing until February 1979, a Pakistani could purchase as much as 23 grams of opium a day from li censed vend shops. The closing of the vends, it is believed, has left from 100,000 to 150,000 addicts with little choice but to turn to a now flourishing illicit market. "We have all those factors working against us," Husnain said. "In addition, our laws having to do with drugs are lenient compared to those of, say, Iran. If we are to keep this thing from getting out of hand, we have to come down hard now, as we are starting to do." According to Husnain, his country's an nual production of opium normally ranges from 200 to 300 metric tons. "All around there are countries in turmoil, and so Pakistan is left to fill the gap as far as providing narcotics is concerned," Husnain said. "It is a very serious situation, and it has even started to result in the spread of addic tion here. In northern Pakistan now you can find whole villages on hashish or opium." The use of opium seems to be heavier in the villages than in the cities of Pakistan. In the largest city of them all, Karachi, the sweltering, swollen hub of the nation's in dustry and commerce, the apathetic stupor of an addict would go little noticed amid the bustle of millions of people in movement. Seven million now live in Karachi, with another 500,000 added each year. By the end of the century this Arabian Sea port city 696
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