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Bashir Noorzai is a former Afghan drug lord. He was an early supporter of the Taliban movement and later worked as an undercover agent on behalf of the U.S. government. Despite being among America's most wanted drug traffickers, he agreed to come to New York City for a debriefing after being promised by his handlers that he would not be arrested, and was arrested ten days after his arrival. In 2008, he was convicted of smuggling heroin into the U.S. and sentenced to life imprisonment. After the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, the 2022 US–Afghan prisoner exchange saw him released from prison in exchange for American contractor Mark Frerichs.
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Afghanistan has long had a history of opium poppy cultivation and harvest. As of 2021, Afghanistan's harvest produces more than 90% of illicit heroin globally, and more than 95% of the European supply. More land is used for opium in Afghanistan than is used for coca cultivation in Latin America. The country has been the world's leading illicit drug producer since 2001. In 2007, 93% of the non-pharmaceutical-grade opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan. By 2019 Afghanistan still produced about 84% of the world market. This amounts to an export value of about US$4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords, and drug traffickers. In the seven years (1994–2000) prior to a Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers' share of gross income from opium was divided among 200,000 families.
The chemical agent used in the Moscow theatre hostage crisis of 26 October 2002 has never been definitively revealed by the Russian authorities, though many possible identities have been speculated. An undisclosed incapacitating agent was used by the Russian authorities in order to subdue the Chechen terrorists who had taken control of a crowded theater.
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The War in Afghanistan was an armed conflict that took place from 2001 to 2021. Launched as a direct response to the September 11 attacks, the war began when an international military coalition led by the United States invaded Afghanistan, declaring Operation Enduring Freedom as part of the earlier-declared war on terror, toppling the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate, and establishing the Islamic Republic three years later. The Taliban and its allies were expelled from major population centers by US-led forces supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance; Osama bin Laden, meanwhile, relocated to neighboring Pakistan. The conflict officially ended with the 2021 Taliban offensive, which overthrew the Islamic Republic, and re-established the Islamic Emirate. It was the longest war in the military history of the United States, surpassing the length of the Vietnam War (1955–1975) by approximately six months.
An opioid overdose is toxicity due to excessive consumption of opioids, such as morphine, codeine, heroin, fentanyl, tramadol, and methadone. This preventable pathology can be fatal if it leads to respiratory depression, a lethal condition that can cause hypoxia from slow and shallow breathing. Other symptoms include small pupils and unconsciousness; however, its onset can depend on the method of ingestion, the dosage and individual risk factors. Although there were over 110,000 deaths in 2017 due to opioids, individuals who survived also faced adverse complications, including permanent brain damage.
David Stephenson Rohde, a journalist for The New York Times, and two associates were kidnapped by members of the Taliban in November 2008. Rohde was in Afghanistan doing research for a book. After being held captive for eight months, in June 2009, Rohde and one of his associates escaped and made their way to safety.
Michelle Justine Lang was a Canadian journalist. Lang was a Calgary Herald reporter and the first Canadian journalist to die in the War in Afghanistan.
Scott Higham is an American journalist and author who documented the corporate and political forces that fueled the opioid epidemic, in addition to conducting other major investigations. He is a five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and won the Pulitzer twice with his colleagues at The Washington Post. After a 24-year career with The Post, he began producing investigative projects for Bill Whitaker at 60 Minutes. He is also coauthor of two books.
Mullah Noorullah Noori is a militant and Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan since 7 September 2021. He was also the Taliban's Governor of Balkh Province during their first rule (1996–2001). Noori spent more than 12 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Noori was released from the detention camp on May 31, 2014, in a prisoner exchange that involved Bowe Bergdahl and the Taliban Five, and flown to Qatar.
Sam Quinones is an American journalist, and author of four books of narrative nonfiction, from Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his reporting in Mexico and on Mexicans in the United States, and for his chronicling of the opioid crisis in America through his 2015 book Dreamland, followed by The Least of Us in 2021. He has been a reporter since 1987, and is now a freelance journalist. He was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times from 2004 to 2014.
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There is an ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States, originating out of both medical prescriptions and illegal sources. It has been called "one of the most devastating public health catastrophes of our time". The opioid epidemic unfolded in three waves. The first wave of the epidemic in the United States began in the late 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when opioids were increasingly prescribed for pain management, resulting in a rise in overall opioid use throughout subsequent years. The second wave was from an expansion in the heroin market to supply already addicted people. The third wave, starting in 2013, was marked by a steep tenfold increase in the synthetic opioid-involved death rate as synthetic opioids flooded the US market.
The opioid epidemic, also referred to as the opioid crisis, is the rapid increase in the overuse, misuse/abuse, and overdose deaths attributed either in part or in whole to the class of drugs called opiates/opioids since the 1990s. It includes the significant medical, social, psychological, demographic and economic consequences of the medical, non-medical, and recreational abuse of these medications.
References
- ↑ Steele, Jonathan (3 December 2001). "From rookie reporter to Taliban prisoner". the Guardian.
- ↑ "Columbia Daily Spectator 24 February 1987 — Columbia Spectator". spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-30.
- ↑ "Freshmen Punished for Stealing Uranium | News | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 2024-07-30.
- ↑ Steele, Jonathan (2001-12-04). "From rookie reporter to Taliban prisoner". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-07-30.
- ↑ Steele, Jonathan (2001-12-04). "From rookie reporter to Taliban prisoner". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-07-30.
- ↑ "Well-known Montreal couple face life imprisonment in Nebraska drug case".
- ↑ "November 2017 Grand Jury". US Department of Justice. November 27, 2017. Retrieved June 30, 2018.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain . - ↑ "Police: Couple invented, cooked, marketed carfentanil, an opioid that 'would pretty much kill you instantly'". Fox 6 Milwaukee. 2019-01-28. Retrieved 2019-11-18.
- ↑ Hassanzadeh, Erin (2019-01-29). "Busted Omaha drug operation sounds like fiction, except it wasn't". KETV. Retrieved 2021-08-13.
- ↑ "United States v. Hechtman, 8:17-cr-00336 - CourtListener.com". CourtListener. Retrieved 2024-07-30.
