Drug addiction blights Pakistan
On the drug route from Afghanistan, Pakistan has the highest number of addicts globally.
Pakistan is struggling with the highest number of drug addicts in the world, according to medical authorities there.
Officials have said there are at least five million people using heroin, opiates, or other mind altering substances across the country.
The United Nations office on drugs and crime estimates around 40 per cent of Afghanistan’s heroin and morphine goes through Pakistan, and some of that is used by the more than 600,000 Pakistani opiate abusers.
Nai Zindagi, or New Life in English, is the country’s biggest rehabilitation programme. Every day it helps around 22,000 addicts across Pakistan.
It gives clean needles to stop the spread of HIV, advises on health issues and gives addicts the chance of getting clean.
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reports from Bara Koh in Pakistan.