Documentary Description
Narrated by Colin Friels and produced by Chris Hilton, Afghanistan:
Drugs, Guns and Money asks these difficult questions by following
the journey of this years opium crops, tracing the drug trafficking
routes heading north from Afghanistan through the nations of the Old
Silk Road on its way to Europe.
The film examines who are the winners and losers as the crop finds
its way to market. The awesome beauty of the landscape provides a
powerful backdrop for the treachery uncovered each step of the way.
Like a cancer, the heroin trade has spread its tentacles through
almost every level of society. In Afghanistan there is mass local
addiction, local HIV epidemics, an unending cycle of violence and
crime, and the corruption of state institutions.
With the war on terror raging, the war on drugs has slipped down the
priority list of the current US administration. But, in the crucial
frontline states of Central Asia, these two wars are inextricably
linked… a fact all too often ignored.
The business is booming. Afghanistan and its near neighbors still
supply around 80 per cent of the heroin sold in Western Europe.
Yesterday’s drug lords are today’s cabinet ministers. How much of a
problem is it for America (and the West) that many of its newest allies
are implicated in one of the most lucrative drug routes in the world?
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