UN warns of new highs for Afghan hashish production…
KABUL – Dishevelled and blind in one eye, the 57-year-old hashish dealer has no fear that police might try to stop the trade he conducts from a petrol station on the edge of the dirty Kabul River.
“If you give them 100 afghani (two dollars) and a joint, they would say carry on,” said the man who gives his name as Mahtaabudin.
“I am not afraid of anyone,” he said gruffly, only agreeing to talk after he has lit a cigarette of heady hashish made from cannabis resin which he shares with some of his customers on the station’s verandah.
He admits to some precautions, such as only selling to people he knows, but Mahtaabudin probably does not really need to be too careful.
With authorities concentrating on Afghanistan’s substantial trade in opium, officials admit there is not the time, money or inclination to worry as much about the production of hashish, which the United Nations warns is climbing.
And anyway, Afghan security forces, especially the police, are notorious users of the drug.
“I don’t know how many but there are people using hashish working with army and other organisations,” said deputy counter narcotics minister Mohammad Zafar.
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