More and more Uzbek families are being torn apart by heroin use. "I pray to God and I know he will help!" says one haggard looking young woman, who seems to have aged years since we last met. Wiping away tears she tells me about the last two months since her husband started taking heroin. At first she stood by him and tried to help, but as he began selling off their furniture, she took her children and is staying with at his parents' place. Another friend tells me about her younger brother. The family won't let him in the house because he keeps trying to steal the few valuables they possess. He too has a drug habit to maintain.

An increasing number of men are turning to heroin in an epidemic few are willing to openly acknowledge. I still find it hard to appreciate the full extent of drug use around me. Families sitting outside their houses as the sun sets, sharing a melon together and beckoning neighbors to join them do not fit with my stereotype of an urban wasteland ravaged by drug use. A social recounts horrific stories of children as young as twelve already hardened heroin users. "I asked one girl why she took narcotics, such a young girl. She told me that as the youngest of eight from a poor family, she might as well enjoy life now. What was the point studying hard for years to get a job which pays five thousand soom a month ($8)?"

Opiates are not a new phenomena to Central Asia. They have been traded along the Silk Road for centuries. Curiously, opium was particularly popular among the wandering dervish pilgrims and a Khan of Khiva, who having outlawed alcohol, had quite a penchant for the poppy. Today, the Silk Road in narcotics is experiencing booming trade as Uzbekistan has become the main funnel for heroin from Afghanistan to Russia and then on to Europe. Islamic fundamentalists and Russian and Central Asian Mafia make for an unusual but extremely effective alliance.

Impoverished border guards and police are easily palmed off and many a taxi van driver will accept a few extra dollars to include a sack of 'flour' among his passengers, asking no questions. This huge influx of heroin has also led to a burgeoning domestic market, and whilst prices are a fraction of that paid in other countries, it still provides a lucrative income. Whilst Uzbek TV make a big show of penitent traffickers caught in the act, the reality is that the drugs epidemic is spiraling out of control. Everyone knows someone who is on drugs but there is virtually no public recognition of the problem. Such public recognition would allow for an awareness campaign to be launched or for drug rehabilitation centers to be opened. At this moment, families continue to struggle alone to help their drug dependent relatives. Some believe the best way to get friends and relatives off drugs is to lock them in an empty room for two weeks and pass food through a hatch. Even if this works, it will not face the reason many poverty stricken men are turning to heroin in the first place.

C. Iskander in Uzbekistan