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Afghanistan Raids Could Cause AIDS Surge
Tuesday, October 16, 2001
(4:02 PM)
By Wendy Pugh / Reuters

Over 95 percent of the heroin on the streets of Europe originates in the Golden Crescent, the poppy fields on the rugged borderlands of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Reuters
The U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan will eventually disrupt the flow of opium from one of the world's top suppliers and could cause heroin-injecting to surge in neighboring Pakistan, leading to a potential AIDS catastrophe, researchers said on Friday.

Heroin prices on the Pakistan-Afghan border plunged after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington as Afghanistan's opium stocks were unloaded.

But the flood of heroin has slowed since U.S. and British warplanes began retaliatory air strikes on Oct. 7.
(More: PlanetOut.com News Source)
2001 © Reuters.

Dan