KABUL, Afghanistan — On Kabul’s eastern outskirts, far from the bustling city centre, lies what locals call “the camp of addicts.” The Avicenna Drug Treatment Center, a massive compound enclosed by towering concrete walls, looms over the Afghan capital.

Within its gates, Afghans face forced rehabilitation in the Taliban’s escalating war on drug addiction, a nationwide crackdown that has intensified since the Islamist militant group reclaimed power in 2021. Nearly 10% of Afghanistan’s population — an estimated four million people — struggle with addiction.

“I was addicted to heroin for 10 years,” said Ehsanullah, a pale man in his late 40s, his voice quivering. “Two months ago, they brought me here to quit drugs. They beat me and warned me not to relapse.”

The Taliban’s methods are often violent. Drug users are forcibly detained using whips and guns, then held for at least 45 days. Their heads are shaved, and they are given inmates’ uniforms.

Overcrowding has forced many drug users into the same prisons that once held Taliban fighters under the previous government’s rule.

Modern drug treatments are virtually non-existent. Medicines like methadone, crucial for managing opioid withdrawal symptoms, are scarce.  International aid, which once supported this treatment, has evaporated since the Taliban’s return to power three years ago.

Ehsanullah’s younger brother, who has witnessed his sibling’s ongoing battle with opioid addiction, said the Taliban’s brutal methods are not working.

“Whenever he gets a chance to escape and return to addiction, he does, because he feels alienated, insecure and stressed in normal settings in society,” he said, adding that the Taliban’s methods are not backed by medical evidence.

Health experts agree. Maiwand Hoshmand, a psychologist at Kabul’s Avicenna Hospital, emphasized the complex nature of addiction, noting that family problems and mental disorders play a major role in Afghanistan’s addiction crisis.

“Forty-five days is considered a standard period for quitting addiction, but for patients who have mental problems, the process of leaving them continues for 90 days,” Hoshmand said.

Many people addicted to drugs spend much longer in recovery facilities and prisons than the 45 days prescribed by Taliban authorities. Radio Azadi, Radio Free Europe’s Afghan arm, reported prison stays of up to six months.

Those who are admitted must sign a pledge to stay off drugs and complete an assessment before their release. If they fail multiple assessments, their time in prison or the recovery facilities can be extended indefinitely.

The United Nations reported that the conditions at Avicenna Hospital – considered the ‘gold standard’ of drug treatment centers in Afghanistan – are “heartbreaking.” International funding has dried up, leaving underpaid, poorly trained staff to deal with patients. Food is scarce, and pharmacy cabinets are practically empty, forcing patients into shock detoxification.

“My children have no one to feed them,” one detainee, held for six months in a Taliban-run rehabilitation program, told the UN.

#AFG Cruel treatment of drug addicts by Taliban soldiers , addicts need treatment not beating. Taliban soldiers beating these addicts in Takhar province. Video courtesy @TajudenSoroush pic.twitter.com/CiFGDNrlkL

— BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) September 13, 2021

Afghanistan’s forgotten women addicts

Thousands of women in Kabul with drug addictions face a uniquely harrowing struggle. The women’s drug treatment facility, separated from the men’s and hidden from public view, can house only 150 addicts for 45-day stints.

Overcrowding means that hundreds of women sleep in hallways with barely enough food to survive. Survivors recount prison-like conditions.

Many share similar stories: they became addicted to drugs due to the influence of men or situations where men were the cause.

Mah Gul (a pseudonym), sits upright in her bed, her pale face and frightened eyes telling a story shared by women across Afghanistan.

“I had no idea he was addicted before we got married,” she said, recounting how her husband, unable to afford treatment for her chronic illness, introduced her to opioids to ease her pain. “He gave me poppy, and my pain eased. Whenever I got sick, I used more and more.”

Halima, a 27-year-old mother separated from her husband and children, says she was forced to resort to drugs to endure the separation.

“My husband was addicted and took my children away from me. He went to Iran, leaving me alone with no one,” Halima said. “I became addicted due to the pain of the loss of my children. I searched a lot to find them, but could not.”

The women’s struggles extend beyond addiction, revealing a complex web of substance abuse, domestic violence and societal pressures amid eroding rights under Taliban rule.

“They can’t keep me here for long once my 45 days are completed,” Halima added, her eyes darting nervously. “I am afraid of my husband. I have no place; I don’t have a job. I can’t go from here. What will happen if I stay on the street? I have no home or shelter.”

Women are feeling increasingly isolated under the Taliban with no rights to study or work. Recent edicts ban women’s voices from being heard singing or reading aloud in public, with the regime declaring a woman’s voice “intimate” and forbidden outside the home.

“Women with addiction should not be judged because they are dealing with an illness, with a disorder, that they cannot cure themselves,” said Haibatullah Ebrahimkhil, a psychologist in Kabul. “We should educate them about addiction.”

On Thursday, the Taliban’s Minister of Education extended the ban on women’s education – the only such ban in the world – even further: to speaking about it.

“Just as education for girls is banned,” he said, “questioning it is also banned.”

Taliban celebrates ‘success’ 

Thats part of what we filmed yesterday in Kabul inside a so called „clinic“ which is more like a prison. Taliban told us, they keep drug addicts here for 45 days to get clean. Most of them were arrested on the street. #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/ZYbiepAYYK

— Paul Ronzheimer (@ronzheimer) December 7, 2021

Before the Taliban takeover, around 100 drug treatment centres operated across Afghanistan. Today, only 61 remain, according to Taliban government figures. The withdrawal of international aid has left even surviving centres struggling to keep their doors open.

“Public healthcare facilities, especially tertiary hospitals … are struggling to cover essential running costs like staff salaries, medicines and medical supplies, fuel, and oxygen supply,” Médecins Sans Frontières, one of the last international organizations still working in Afghanistan, said in June, noting “the lack of long-term structural support for the health sector in Afghanistan.”

This has not stopped the Taliban regime from celebrating the perceived success of their strict counter-narcotics policies. The regime frequently conducts highly visible — and often violent — raids on addicts’ encampments, presenting these actions as evidence of their commitment to eradicating drug abuse.

In June, the Taliban held an opulent ceremony to mark the ‘Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking’ at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel, perched high above the city’s poorest areas where many addicts live.

The Intercontinental, which opened its doors in 1969 as Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel, has been a silent witness to the country’s turbulent history. It has seen seven different governments come and go and has stood through nearly half a century of continuous conflict since 1978.

Once a symbol of Afghanistan’s aspirations for modernity and progress, the hotel is now under Taliban management.

“Since the establishment of the Islamic Emirate, 54,374 drug addicts have been treated,” Abdul Wali Haqqani, the Taliban’s Deputy Minister of Public Health, declared from the Intercontinental ballroom.

Shams Al-Rahman Minhaj, representing the Ministry of Interior’s Anti-Narcotics Directorate, offered even higher figures: “Since the Islamic Emirate took power, 114,340 drug addicts have been collected and sent to addiction treatment centres. In 2023, 33,226 individuals were collected.”

Talib officials were joined by Jamshid Tanwali, a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), who spoke on the concerning increase in addiction worldwide.

“In 2011, there were 240 million drug addicts globally; this number rose to 296 million in 2021,” Tanwali said. “Given the global increase, drug use in Afghanistan might also have risen.”

As addiction rates climb, Afghanistan’s opium production has plummeted under Taliban rule. UN figures show poppy cultivation in Afghanistan fell by 95% in 2023. Opium production dropped from 6,200 tons to 333 tons.

Myanmar has overtaken Afghanistan as the world’s largest opium producer, ending Afghanistan’s two-decade dominance of the illicit global market. At its peak in 2007, Afghanistan supplied 93% of the world’s illicit opiates.

Habibullah Aqli, a sociologist, argues that the current approach is insufficient. “There are three basic solutions,” he says, “identifying the main sponsors and drug growers, defining a legal mechanism for drugs and sellers, and developing a policy to address mental aspects of the addicts.”

The decline in opium production comes as the Taliban crackdown on a trade they long profited from. For two decades, the Taliban financed their insurgency through the opium trade, weaving a complex tapestry of economic dependency and addiction throughout Afghan society.

Now in power, the Taliban face the daunting task of dismantling a national crisis they helped create.

Stefan Anderson contributed reporting for this story. 

Image Credits: Jacksoncam, Olaf Kellerhoff.