The Hardline Religious Group Supports Its Activities By Dealing In Hard Drugs

In horrors reminiscent of the Roman coliseum, Kabul Sports Stadium packs in capacity crowds of 30,000 to witness Taliban justice. Adulterers are flogged, murderers killed, and thieves have their right hand and left foot amputated. Taliban soldiers gleefully parade around the stadium holding up severed limbs.

The Taliban movement originated in the dismal Pakistani refugee camps during the Afghan-Soviet conflict, and grew during the Afghan Civil war between rival political factions following the Soviet departure. The Taliban promised to bring peace to an Afghan population weary of 16 years of warfare. Instead, they turned on the Afghan population.'The scourge of Afghan heroin has hit Pakistan the hardest. Addiction rates soared from less than 20,000 in 1980 to over 2,000,000 today, making it the world's largest heroin addict population.'

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The mind sets of policy makers about liberalizing drug laws are hard to believe.

Facts are ignored and prejudice stoked into fires, but there is a growing pro lobby

It should come as no surprise to the organizers of the World Conference Against Racism that many US activists want to hijack this conference that started in Durban on Friday to force a debate about how it is that the US' "war on drugs" has turned into an apartheid- like device that imprisons black men at 13 times the rate of white men.

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