KABUL(SW):Salamat Azimi, Minister of Counter Narcotics (MoCN) has said that the poppy cultivation and smuggling has fallen by up to 40 percent this year compared to the previous year.
Salam Azimi and Najia Tareq, Deputy for Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) briefed Masharano Jirga (upper house) on the state of drug trade and treatment of the addicts on Tuesday.
Najia Tareq addressed parliamentarians saying that the MoPH was considering to set-up hospitals across six zones in the country for addicts’ recovery.
She added that establishing hospitals was not the only solution because according to reports, 92 percent of the drug users soon after recovery relapse into the drugs.
The number of drug users has increased in the recent years in the country.
According to a research, the number of addicts was around 920,000 in 2005 but the number increased to 1 million in 2009 while in 2014 it has reached to 3 million.
According to a report by department of counter narcotics at the US’s State Department, children also made a large number of drug users in Afghanistan.
Ferozuddin Feroz, Minister of Public Health, said a while ago that the number of addicts in Afghanistan has reached to 3 million.
Fazel Hadi Muslimyar, the Speaker of the upper house, said that the responses of the Minister for Counter Narcotics, were convincing.
Gul Ahmad Aziz, one of the senators said that the number of drug addicts in 12 years barely reached 100,000 but due to lack of attention by the officials the number of drug users recently reached to millions.
ENDS
