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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Number of drug addicts in Iran doubles in six years on bumper crop in Afghanistan |
| 2017-06-26 |
[IsraelTimes] Opium still ranks as most heavily consumed narcotic in Islamic Theocratic Republicdue to proximity to poppy powerhouse Afghanistan. The number of drug addicts in Iran has more than doubled in six years, with opium the country’s most popular narcotic, local media reported Sunday. "There are about 2.8 million people regularly consuming drugs" in the country of 80 million people, Drug Control Organization front man Parviz Afshar told the ISNA news agency. Citing experts from the health ministry, Iran’s Welfare Organization and his own agency, Afshar said the number of drug users was up from 1.3 million six years ago. He said opium made up 67 percent of consumption, with marijuana and its derivatives accounting for 12 percent and methamphetamine around 8 percent of the total. "Opium is still the most popular (drug) and methamphetamine use has dropped significantly," he said. Iran’s neighbor Afghanistan produces some 90 percent of the world’s opium, which is extracted from poppy resin and refined to make heroin. Iran is a major transit point for Afghan-produced opiates heading to Europe and beyond. Opium production surged significantly after the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and overthrew the ruling Taliban ...Arabic for students... By its last year in power, the Taliban had slashed opium output to just 185 tons a year, according to United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... estimates. But the UN says Afghan production has since rocketed, hitting between 4,800 and 6,000 tons in 2016. Last year’s bumper crop, aided by better weather, pushed world opium output up by a third on the previous year and helped fund an intensifying Taliban insurgency. That is despite a decade of international efforts to stabilize the country and billions of dollars spent on persuading Afghan farmers to grow other crops. The UN’s crime and drugs agency said Thursday that the global narcotics market is "thriving" with opiates causing tens of thousands of avoidable deaths a year. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 In a population of approx. 70 million it used to be one in every sixteen iranians was buying and using cheap narcotics. Grown in Afghanistan and refined in pakistan and smuggled into the two southern border provinces of Iran. You mean to say that the figure has improved ( is that the right term ?) to one in eight Iranians? You could get dope for the price of a pint of milk ten years ago. And the whores were a problem using the graveyard out side the Moslem seminary. ( flat tomb lid stones were as good as beds although a bit hard on the back ) But that was only in the town of Qom. I don't know how serious the other towns were. Just the seminary towns was all I heard. Between prostitution and dope Islamic Values are a caution. |
| Posted by: Clating Grundy2516 2017-06-26 04:50 |