Chiva: A Village Takes on the Global Heroin Trade

Its use as a narcotic is on a precipitous rise. Worldwide heroin production has doubled in the last decade, and the United Nations estimates more than 15 million users are addicted—up to 3 million in the United States. It’s big business, too, with yearly global sales of $500 billion—up to $22 billion in the U.S. Enmeshed with terrorism, crime, government collaboration, corporate globalization, and the spread of HIV, the opiate trade is inextricably entangled with the functioning of global s...