POPPY

Life Death and Addiction Inside Afghanistans Opium Trade The farmers survival. The Talibans fight. The warlords power. Democracys ruin. Afghanistan has become the worlds largest producer of opium and its offshoot heroin - all under the noses of Western civil and military stakeholders. At the nexus of the War on Terror and the War on Drugs truth is as elusive and fragile as the new democracy itself now on the brink of being consumed by an expanding mire of chaos. Stranger in a strange land588~ entered the war-torn country alone and spent eight months investigating Afghanistans dependence on poppy. Who depends on poppy profits? And who pays the ultimate cost? Along the way he encountered Afghans whose lives were intimately tied to the trade: farmers harvesters eradicators smugglers police doctors addicts warlords gun-runners politicians - even a pop-song loving Taliban commander. The result is a tense fascinating and deeply moving journey along the narcotics trail and a story about keeping your sanity in a senseless world.