Speaking exclusively to IRNA, Head of Iran's Anti-Narcotics Police Brigadier General Massoud Zahedian said on June 8 that if Europe does not pay its share of fighting against illegal drug trafficking, it should deal with a situation in which illicit drugs will be available to every European individual.
Europeans are the biggest consumer market of Afghan drugs, and Afghanistan is still the world's biggest opium producer which shares a long border with its western strategic country of Iran.
Iran, as one of Afghanistan's neighbors, is on the route of illegal drug transit to Europe and the country has not been secured against such illegal activities.
Secretary-General of Iran's Anti-Narcotics Headquarters Brigadier General Eskandar Momeni said that despite the international sanctions and lack of modern equipment, Iran is the world’s number one country in the fight against drug trafficking.
Momeni said that Iran accounts for some 76% of the opium seized around the world.
**Some 4,000 Iranian forces martyred in fight against drug trafficking
He said that Iran views the fight against drug trafficking as a transnational and global duty so that some 4,000 of Iranian forces have been martyred for this goal.
We care for health and prosperity of Iranian young people and think that it is not different from that of young people of other nations, Momeni said.
He said that UN reports suggest that drug cultivation in 2018 has set a record which is unprecedented over the past two decades.
Momeni put the global number of addicts at 275 million people.
the International Day Against Drug Trafficking and Abuse of Illicit Drugs in Tehran on June 24, 2019.
Addressing the same conference in Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the US and some other Western countries are responsible for the consequences of hampering the fight against drug trafficking.
**US sanctions hindering Iran's anti-narcotics campaign
The US unilateral sanctions and economic war against the Iranian nation are impeding the country’s international cooperation particularly the international campaign against drug trafficking, Zarif said.
Because of its geographical situation on neighborhood of the world’s biggest producer of traditional drugs, Iran anti-narcotic measures are not merely restricted to its borders and have, rather, regional and international effects, the foreign minister added.
He criticized that a new approach is attempting to normalize and decriminalize drug trafficking under different pretexts such as human rights, upgrading public health and increasing access to under control corridors.
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