Opium Addiction On Rise for Afghan Moms, Kids

Poor Afghans view opium as a 'tradition'

(NEWSER) - In a remote corner of northern Afghanistan, a woman feeds her four-year-old opium for breakfast. Her mother-in-law, sitting nearby, rolls some opium into a ball-shaped piece and puts it in her mouth. Three generations are addicted to the drug in this family, and there are many more Afghans like them, reports CNN , which says the desperately poor nation has more than one million addicts. More»

Indoor sunbathing junkies use more drugs, feel more anxious: docs

(NEWSER) - Indoor tanning creates addicts, and college students hooked on artificial sunbathing use more pot and booze than their unaddicted counterparts, researchers say. Fifty of 229 subjects were considered clinically addicted to tanning as well as alcohol and drugs, but the results didn't isolate a cause-and-effect relationship, Reuters notes. Whether getting hooked on artificial rays or genuine controlled substances, users go through "a similar addictive process," Bloomberg reports. More»

(NEWSER) - Afghanistan’s booming opium industry has hooked entire families on drugs, forcing them to sell land, livestock, and daughters to pay for their addiction, the AP reports. Some 200,000 Afghans are strung out on heroin or opium—50,000 more than in the US—as addiction moves from granddads down to toddlers in close-knit villages. “I take the food from this child to pay for my opium," says Beg, an addict. "He just stays hungry." More»

Investigators say US-funded force has been ferrying illegal weapons, too

(NEWSER) - The US military and the DEA are both investigating the Afghan Air Force, over allegations that it has been using its aircraft—most of which were funded with US cash—to ferry narcotics and illegal weapons around the country, officials tell the Wall Street Journal . Senior AAF and Afghan government officials have allegedly been involved in the flights, or else turned a blind eye to them. While there's no hard proof yet, the allegations come from "credible" Afghan and coalition personnel. More»

Doctors say addiction more than just behavioral problem

(NEWSER) - After four years of work involving 80 experts, the American Society of Addiction Medicine is redefining addiction—to alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, and more—as a brain disorder, updating its former classification as a behavioral problem, reports Live Science . Addiction is also now considered a primary and chronic disorder, meaning it is not the result of stress, abuse, or other causes, and it needs to be treated over a patient's lifetime, just as one would deal with a chronic disease like diabetes. More»