VZCZCXRO7222
PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHBC RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDBU RUEHDE RUEHDF RUEHDIR
RUEHIK RUEHKUK RUEHLH RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHNEH RUEHPW RUEHROV RUEHSK
RUEHSR RUEHTRO RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHAH #0672/01 1521022
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 011022Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2880
INFO RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA 5236
RUEHDE/AMCONSUL DUBAI 0092
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL 3480
RHMFIUU/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ASHGABAT 000672 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN AND INL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL SNAR SOCI TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN:  LOCALS RECOUNT LIVES MARRED BY DRUG 
ADDICTION 
 
ASHGABAT 00000672  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  In conversations with Iran Watcher, two 
Turkmen women candidly described how addiction to heroin and 
opium, the drugs of choice for Turkmenistan's addicts, has 
affected members of their own families and communities.  The 
two women, of differing socioeconomic backgrounds, both 
attended Turkmenistan's most presigious university.  Their 
accounts of the addicts, all of whom they know personally, 
depict a drug situation of disturbing proportions.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
THE ADDICT UNCLE: "I'M GOING TO DIE HERE" 
 
¶2. (SBU) The first woman, originally from the province of 
Dashoguz, resides in the Ashgabat district of Khitrovka, 
where she estimates that "every third home" has either a drug 
addict or dealer in it.  She described how her maternal aunt, 
now in her late 30's, has been married for 15 years to a 
Dashoguz laborer unable to break an addiction to smoking 
opium.  The couple has one child, a 13-year old daughter. 
Her husband reportedly began smoking opium early in their 
marriage, and eventually resorted to selling the family's 
possessions to buy drugs.  At one point, about ten years ago, 
the situation became so unbearable that her aunt used a part 
of her assets to send her husband to a drug rehabilitation 
center in Russia.  He reportedly stayed away from drugs for a 
period and stayed on in Russia, working there as a laborer 
and sending home money to the family.  Later, however, he 
fell back on drugs and the remittances stopped coming.  He 
returned to Dashoguz, where his wife purchased a car for him 
to use for a taxi business, but he reportedly could not stop 
using drugs.  In frustration, his wife again arranged for 
treatment for him in Russia, after which he again found 
employment there.  After he lost his job in the aftermath of 
the global financial crisis, however, he began using drugs 
again and called home to tell his wife, "I'm ging to die 
here and no one will find my body."  She traveled to Russia 
to bring him home again.  Now he is back in Dashoguz, 
unemployed and spends his days smoking opium, depleting 
whatever assets his wife is able to accumulate from the 
traditional Turkmen embroidery that she stitches for sale. 
Her own family has shunned her, telling her she must chose 
between them and her addict husband. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The same contact also told of another acquaintance 
in Dashoguz, a man in his thirties from a prominent local 
family, who began using drugs 15 years ago when he came to 
Ashgabat to attend university.  His family reportedly 
purchased him an apartment and car to use during that time in 
Ashgabat, and he later became acquainted at a party with a 
local drug seller, who offered him drugs free of charge "just 
to try."  He eventually began holding parties regularly at 
his apartment where opium use was customary.  He later earned 
a degree in petroleum engineering, but has never broken the 
opium habit and has been unable to hold a job.  Now married 
with two children, he lives in a separate room in his 
parents' home in Dashoguz, eats alone, and never sees guests 
who visit the home.  He had been stealing his parents' 
posessions to purchase drugs, after which his parents had him 
involuntarily committed to the large state-run treatment 
center in Dashoguz.  According to our contact, "no one ever 
gets cured" at the center, where physicians reportedly sell 
drugs "under the table" to the patients they are treating. 
She said that the addict's parents now prefer to give him 
money regularly to purchase drugs, and that his wife 
continues living with her in-laws, who treat her "like a 
housekeeper." 
 
¶4. (SBU) Our second contact, from a prominent family in 
Ashgabat, is in her early 30's and was widowed several years 
ago.  Her late husband came from a well-off family that is 
closely connected to the government.  Her former 
brother-in-law, now in his early forties, has been addicted 
to opium for twenty years, she said.  According to his 
parents, he began using drugs after a neighbor, himself a 
drug dealer, provided him with opium to smoke.  (NOTE: 
According to our contact, smoking opium is the means favored 
 
ASHGABAT 00000672  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
by well-off Turkmen addicts, whereas the poor tend to inject 
lower-quality heroin.  END NOTE.)  Although he earned a 
degree in dentistry, according to our contact, he has never 
held a job and is "always high."  Married with one child, he 
now lives alone in a separate apartment that the family owns. 
 His family sent him to drug treatment centers in Russian and 
Krygystan, without success.  He had been stealing his 
parents' possessions to buy opium, but they have since 
resorted to giving him money for drugs.  He has apparently 
sold all of his possessions and now sleeps on the bare floor 
of his apartment. 
 
A FORTUNE IN THE JEWELRY BUSINESS, LOST TO ADDICTION 
 
¶5. (SBU) The same contact also told of a close family friend 
and talented jeweler in Ashgabat, the father of two children, 
who earned a small fortune trading in jewelry and precious 
gems in a business he opened more then ten years ago. 
According to our contact, after he became wealthy, he fell 
victim to "boredom" and "wondered how to spend all his 
money," at which point he began smoking opium.  Within six 
months, she said, the jeweler had lost his business and all 
of his money to drug use.  (Based on her own observations, 
our contact estimates that about ten percent of 
Turkmenistan's wealthy are addicted to drugs).  She said that 
her family has lost contact with the jeweler/addict, who was 
last seen begging on the street about three years ago.  "I 
doubt that he is even still living," she said. 
 
¶6. (SBU) COMMENT:  The more we talk to locals about drugs and 
drug addiction in Turkmenistan, the more ominous things seem. 
 President Berdimuhamedov, through the State Counter 
Narcotics Service, has made the pursuit of drug suppliers a 
priority.  Newspapers have begun to report regularly on the 
arrest of dealers and the stiff penalties they receive.  From 
all accounts, however, drug demand is at the center of the 
problem, and extends far beyond the "30,000" addicts that the 
government has admitted to publicly.  As the local head of a 
UN agency told us recently, the young Turkmen women in his 
office have told him of they are afraid of marrying a Turkmen 
man.  "These days," they reportedly said, "You never know who 
is an addict." END COMMENT. 
MILES