PAKISTAN

The heroin crisis in Pakistan's border regions — particularly along the Afghan frontier — has created what some researchers call the world's largest untreated addict population. Millions of Pakistani men use heroin, crystal meth, or prescription opioids, and the treatment infrastructure is virtually nonexistent. In Karachi and Lahore, men smoke crystal meth to endure labor-intensive work; in the tribal areas, opium use is culturally embedded among Pashtun men. The 2022 floods — which submerged a third of the country — exposed the masculine crisis in its rawest form: men who couldn't protect their families from rising water experienced a failure so fundamental that it struck at the very core of what Pakistani culture asks men to be. The reconstruction has been physical; the psychological rebuilding of millions of men who watched everything they built disappear under brown water has barely begun.