Pakistan's daily news service Dawn reports on the rise in scorpion smoking there:
(Seventy-four-year-old Sohbat Khan's) addiction to opium doesn't bother him as much; Sohbat says opium's affects are far safer than scorpion smoking. He knows his body is too old to bear the high, but there are days he still feels the pull.
"Chars aw powder kho asi gup dai," Sohbat says in way of explanation—"Hashish and heroin's so-called relief is nothing in front of scorpion."
During his years of addiction, Sohbat remembers madly roaming around his house and village, hunting for scorpions. Often, when the need was too overwhelming and there was no scorpion in sight, he would make his way to Peshawar. "It's a worst form of addiction," he says in Pashto.
"I would inhale the smoke coming out of the fire," Sohbat says, although it is the tail that addicts really want—its poisonous venom makes for dangerous addiction.
"Smoking dead scorpions is KP's latest dangerous addiction" (Dawn)
