H09630
Headlines : InternationalIran: More money needed to fight drugs ... or else
Iran’s battle against the drug trade is an untold story worth telling. Imagine trying to plug the 1,000 km border with Afghanistan, even more so since the liberatory war there began, which has liberated thousands of tonnes of opium. The dealers in such drugs are a paramilitary force of some stature, with 3,500 Iranian casualties in the past 20 years.
Now, they are saying to themselves ‘why are we losing men and money fighting drugs, when we could just ship them on through to Europe and, if we’re lucky, the U.S.?’ It’s a nice bargaining chip. Could be worth $500bn if they play their cards right. If not, then it could be spun as another round in the steady approach of war with Iran.
Iran too has its addiction problem which is rarely covered by the western media, with perhaps 2 million heroin users alone – a massive drain on their society. Their relatively liberal strategies to solve this problem might come as a surprise to some consumers of the party line on Iran.
[Posted By Szamko]Republished from Mail & Guardian Online (South Africa)
Iran has threatened to allow traffickers to flood Europe with narcotics unless its costly border-security operation is given a massive hike in United Nations funding.
The Islamic republic’s new anti-drugs head said Iran had asked the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for a hefty $500-million in order to combat smugglers from neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Fada-Hossein Maleki said Iran also wanted to use the half-a-billion dollars in cash to fund substance-abuse prevention and treatment projects inside Iran.
“For the moment we do not allow drugs to transit, but if they do not aid us we will naturally reconsider,” he told reporters on Sunday, ahead of the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.
“The West should have a lot to fear if Iran changes its policy,” Maleki said, adding that Iran “cannot tolerate a selective attitude in contributing financial aid” to the war on drugs.
The UNODC spent $13-million in Iran last year and the anti-drug funding could go as high as $22-million in 2006, a source in their Tehran office told Agence France-Presse.
But the agency refused to comment on the new Iranian threat, which if carried out could see Europe — as well as much of the Middle East — flooded…
Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.
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that’s possibly the most interesting thing I’ve read about Iran since, well, it’s been a while.
Dealers are executed and anyone caught consuming drugs risks imprisonment, lashings and heavy fines
tough on crime always works, regardless of the society.
Heh.
Iran is really smart. Taliban got tough on drugs so we had to go back in there and make sure the drugs flowed freely.
yeah.. for some reason i’m thinking the united states wouldn’t mind it if the border were more open for opium to be trafficked… i don’t know
Heres something interesting, the US is the only westernized country that still executes people, its also the only country, ironically next to Iran, that still executes children…
I thought the supreme court recently banned that?
I think Vincente Fox tried something similar about a month ago… see H08930 & H08939. Basically, I think Fox was pressuring Bush on the immigration issue by threatening to legalize & decrminalize certain drugs.
It’s a valid question though… why should drug producing countries worry about the problems their drugs might cause in foreign lands? Last I checked, American tobacco companies are making it their #1 prioity to market to the third world, American arms dealers do plenty of buisiness in foreign war zones and American chemical firms like Monsanto market chemicals banned in the USA to foreigners all the time without our government worrying too much. If Uncle Sam or Europe don’t like drug trafficing, they should at least foot the bill for stamping it out.
nice point bacchus
Iran should really emphasis that it’s ‘u.s. occupied afghanistan’ that is producing so much, prevent anyone from taking a moral high-ground on them.