Irvine Welsh Irvine Welsh Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer. His novel "Trainspotting" was made into a film of the same name. His work is characterised by a raw Scots dialect and brutal depiction of Edinburgh life. He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short films. Irvine Welsh was born in Leith, the port area of the Scottish capital Edinburgh. He states that he was born in 1958, though, according to the Glasgow police, his birth record is dated around 1951. When he was four, his family moved to Muirhouse,
Heroin and Hmong tribesmen in Laos. This helped the development of the Golden Triangle opium production region, which supplied about one-third of heroin consumed in US after the 1973 American withdrawal from Vietnam. In 1999, Burma, the heartland of the Golden Triangle, was the second largest producer of heroin, after Afghanistan. The Soviet-Afghan war led to increased production in the Pakistani-Afghan border regions, as U.S.-backed mujaheddin militants raised money for arms from selling opium, contributing heavily to the modern Golden Crescent creation. By 1980, 60 percent of heroin sold in the U.S. originated in Afghanistan. It increased international production of heroin