Afghanistan's Fatal Flower (2005)

 

Documentary filmmakers Cliff Orloff and Olga Shalygin return to Afghanistan for their 4th report on conditions since the fall of the Taliban in 2002. With this latest film they capture the controversy surrounding Afghanistan’s Fatal Flower…the opium poppy.

 

From rural villages to major cities, the trickle-down effect from the opium trade is clearly visible.

 

Former warlords are now politicians in the new Afghanistan. Some have their own militias funded by this poppy flower – the raw material for 87% of the world’s heroin. The United Nations and the U.S. government warn that Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a “narco-state.”

 

Through interviews with poppy farmers, government officials and local journalists, they document the material improvements in life as a result of the opium flower.

 

The filmmakers find the new Afghanistan a country whose economy is hooked on heroin.