Afghanistan’s Drug Problem

It’s nothing new for Afghanistan to be in the news, but usually it has to do with U.S. military in that country or the ongoing war on terror. This week, Iran changed the subject and spoke out about the nation and its growing production of illicit drugs.

A senior Iranian judiciary official has warned the West about the devastating outcomes of the ongoing growth in the production of illicit drugs in Afghanistan, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"Today, the issue of illicit drugs is considered as a threat to humanity, the European countries should not imagine that Iran is the sole victim of narcotics," deputy head of Iran's Judiciary Seyed Ebrahim Rayisee was quoted as saying.

The official went on to call the issue a “threat to humanity. He insisted that Iran doesn’t produce opium, but the illicit substance is imported into the country from Afghanistan and Pakistan. More worrying is the fact that despite the foreign troop presence, drug production is up.

Iran isn’t the only one sounding an alarm. Just last month the United Nations warned in a new report that the smuggling of Afghan opiates is not only fuelling addiction and drug use along trafficking routes from Iran to Central Asia, but it is also spreading diseases and funding insurgents. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime called the Afghan narcotics flow a “multibillion-dollar” industry. With that kind of money being generated, it’s not likely to slow to a trickle anytime soon.

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