Sarfaraza I as born and raised in the tribal area and completed my matriculation from there. I came across just a few people that used occasional Charras thing. But they were too very hard working and business minded individuals. Those are still there, but have no idea, whether or not they still do that occasional puffing.

We in the tribal areas live under peace and harmony without the presence of police stations and police patrol. The Judicial system is in the hands of the tribes and there too occasionally the tribes fight over one thing : big chunks of land only. That too almost in every case is handled by the good offices of the adjoining tribes and sub-tribes etc. The corruption is rampant where the verdict of the civilian set up of the federally controlled Political Agents (administration). They have polarized the entire society as is the case in the district administrations and bureaucracy.

We in the tribal areas live under peace and harmony

The business in Opium and Hashish is century old and it is the natural product of the region and mostly it was an export product for medicinal uses. The menace of addiction came during the cold war, where the US and Russian (SOVIET) armies personnel try to grab these products and put the host nationals on different kind of drugs for the American way of drug addiction and fantasies. The came the Russian menace into Afghanistan in 1979. Those soldiers were new to the land and were not used to getting involved with fiercely tribal and Islamic traditions and cultures. They in order to keep themselves happy and in good mood resorted to these drugs. And on the other side of the equation CIA started turning these drugs into a cash for their funding to buy arms and other cash for the Mujahedin. The Mujahedin have no idea that these weapons were purchased through these illegal money.

That brought the flow of drugs and a new kind of American drug product called the heroin etc. The war displaced the afghan population and millions crossed the border into the adjacent tribal regions. That desperate population with families and poverty started something to make some quick bucks. That was the time when the Tribal areas saw the rush to gold. Ever since that time that problem is now slowly going back to normal. Many a times I myself saw the demolition of houses by the Ulema in the Tribal belt of the individuals who would use small houses as supply points and that led to some frequent use by the youth in the areas of small and big towns.

But to say that this problem is endemic is not true. The region has thus far recovered from that menace and all of you saw that during the Taliban times when even the crop was eradicated and the UN and even their enemies the USA bear witness to their great job in that direction.

Anyways, it was good that you brought that point for discussion and hope you have now some picture before you.

Wassalam!

Staso

Umar Khan Dawar