By Adam Gonn

Source: The MidEast News Source

March 3, 2010

U.S. State Department report claims Iran has the globe’s highest rates of opiate drug abuse.

Iran suffers from the highest levels of opiate drug use in the world, a U.S. government report has claimed.

The 2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report released by the U.S. State Department concluded that with its close proximity to Afghanistan, Iran has the highest levels of heroin and opium use in the world.

“Iran was a producer for many years until the [1979 Islamic] revolution, when it was eradicated, but they could not do away with the addiction,” Thomas Pietschmann, Research Officer with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told The Media Line.

“It’s simply due to Afghanistan,” he continued. “Opium and heroin [from Afghanistan] are exported via Iran to turkey and then to Europe. They also supply the goods to the Iranian markets, not very much smaller than the markets of Western Europe.”

Afghanistan’s share of the world opium market is estimated to be between 87 and 93 percent.

According the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, there are around 5 million opiate users in Western Europe compared to 1.4 million in Iran but while heroin is commonly used in Europe, opium use is more widespread in Iran.

But Pietschmann pointed out that the exact levels of drug use were hard to verify since figures are dependent on the methodologies chosen.

David T. Johnson, assistant secretary at the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs with the U.S. State Department said the problem needed to be seen in its wider context.

“The country, regrettably, with the highest usage is Iran, and it has got substantial efforts underway to help deter this,” he said. “[But] it’s a global problem and one that we work on globally with our partners.”

“It requires the cooperative efforts of all the countries involved,” Johnson continued. “Those that produce and those who are ultimately consumers themselves. Whether they wish it or not, by virtue of the nature of drug production it requires efforts on behalf of all governments.”

Influential Iranian blogger Potkin Azarmehr told The Media Line that the government was one possible cause for the high use of opiates in the country.

“The price of drugs is sometimes cheaper than cigarettes,” he said. “The general consensus among people is that the regime wants to make it cheap, and that they are not looking for smugglers.”

“Some people also say the regime is trying to have a passive and addicted youth,” Azarmehr said regarding rumors that the regimes is trying to prevent political turmoil by keeping young people occupied with drugs rather than politics.

According to the semi-official Iranian news agency Press TV, Iran aims to spend a total of $3 billion on anti-smuggling efforts in the coming years. As part of these measures border posts are being planned in the south east of the country, and new crossings have been established.

In the east of the country, wide canals, concrete walls and embankments are being planned to seal off the country’s border with Afghanistan.

Since the 1979 revolution some 3,300 Iranian soldiers and policemen have been killed along the border in incidents related to smuggling.