Foreign Affairs
Authorities Alarmed By Refugees’ High Rate Of Heroin Use
Flikr Creative Commons/David Hilowitz
Swedish police are launching special operations to crank down the spike in heroin use among child refugees from Afghanistan.
Unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan are targeted by drug dealers and lured into addiction. Police made a dozen arrests this week, the same amount of related arrests as all of 2015.
“Many have started an addiction early when they were in Greece and then they come here and bring in others from the same demographic,” border patrol spokesman Christian Frödén told state broadcaster SVT. “It’s a case of people feeling bad about moving from their home countries, and they may have had terrible experiences along the way.”
Drug dealers offer free trials of heroin to start refugees’ addictions. A narcotics officer in Stockholm said bad mental state is what make refugees easy targets. (RELATED: Police Blame Germany’s Drug Problems On Refugee Crisis)
“They are very attracted to drugs because of how bad they feel,” the narcotics officer said. “Because they’re smoking it, they don’t think it’s that dangerous.”
An Afghani refugee and recovering heroin addict named Human is warning his fellow nationals about the dangers of starting an addiction.
“They don’t understand how dangerous it is,” Human told SVT. “You need it every day and you are willing to kill to get more. You don’t care at all and you’re willing to sell yourself or rob someone just to get heroin.”
About 23,000 unaccompanied minors from Afghanistan came to Sweden in 2015, according to SVT.
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