Thomas Sydenham (September 10, 1624 – December 29, 1689) was an English physician. Called "father of English medicine" or "English Hippocrates," told this quote:

"Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium."

Opium (poppy tears, lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex, an emulsion of  polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium, obtained from opium poppies (Papaver somniferoum). The Latin botanical name means, loosely, the "sleep-bringing poppy", referring to the sedative properties of some of these opiates.

Opium contains up to 12% morphine, a potent analgesic psychoactive drug and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. In clinical medicine, the morphine is regarded as the gold standard, or benchmark, of analgesics used to relieve severe or agonizing pain and suffering. The morphine is most frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine, used in medicine for its analgesic, antitussive and antidiarrheal properties, and non-narcotic alkaloids, such as papaverine, noscapine and thebaine.

Last year, Afghanistan produced nearly 4,000 tons of opium, about 75 percent of the world’s supply. Opium — the milky substance drained from the poppy plant — is converted into heroin and sold in Europe and North America. 

After US occupation in December 2001, production increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels – 6,100 tons in 2006 (a 3200% increase in five years).

At Sarab a village of the province Afghan of  Badakhshan, the drug addiction affects entire families, here all smoke opium, even the children. The old men are incapable also only to imagine a different life for the children