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God, Heroin And The Taliban
  
As The Faithful Gather To Pray In Pakistan, Miro Cernetig Meets An Addict With
A Forbidden Tale
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN -- His eyes are as yellow as egg yolks, his arms have
open sores that draw hungry flies and his legs are too thin to carry him home to
Afghanistan. Yet Altanlah Khan smiles dreamily, as heroin addicts so often do, and thanks the Taliban for his daily dose.
"Taliban sell the heroin to us," he says, gesturing toward the dusty road that leads to a steel gate, beyond which lies the Khyber Pass, the storied route into Afghanistan and the planet's most prolific poppy fields. "We are still buying the drugs from the Taliban. There is no change in that."
With two fellow addicts, Mr. Khan sits on the ground across from a mosque when
the sun dips, as he does every day in this city near the Afghan border.
The late afternoon prayers begin, drawing hundreds of men who put mats by the
open sewers, drop to their knees and bow their heads toward Mecca. "Allahu
akbar" -- God is great -- drifts out of rusty speakers atop the mosque's minaret. But it is heroin, not God, that has hold of Mr. Khan.
He is splayed on a patch of grass, waiting for the prayers to end and hoping the men soon would roll up their prayer mats, take pity and drop a few rupees as they walk by.
It costs as little as 30 rupees, the equivalent of 50 cents, for a heroin hit, and Mr. Khan needs at least three a day.
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