Opium Main Currency in Afghan Village

"We weigh the opium and it has a specific price. The fabric also has its specific price; we deal with it that way," tradesman Khan Agha, 30, told the paper.

"After I collect the opium I will put it into packets according to weight, then a customer comes who buys it wholesale. I sell it to them for cash and then go to Kabul or Faizabad to get the fabric for my shop."

The town's locals are so destitute and use the poppies they grow in the surrounding fields to purchase what they need.

At the market, five liters of engine oil can be bought for 100g of opium. Two bottles of Coca-Cola cost 18g.

The poppies are planted in March and commonly harvested during August or September.

If the poppy is not in season the shopkeeper will keep a record in a ledger of the items people have taken and the debts are paid off after the harvest, the paper said.

Even Children

Even the children use opium to buy goods.

"All the children put a little bit of opium on a leaf as payment. They ask the shopkeeper, 'Please give me a pen, give me two notebooks, give me two biscuits and three pieces of chewing gum'," Shahran Pur, a tribal elder, told The Independent.

The town's locals are treating opium just like vegetables or fruit, insisting that there is not a single drug addict among them.

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