Pubdate: Fri, 07 Jun 2002
Source: BBC News (UK Web)
Copyright: 2002 BBC
Contact: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/forum/
Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/558
Author: Jim Muir of the BBC
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

IRAN'S BATTLE WITH HEROIN

Javad and his friends are among an officially estimated two million 
Iranians now taking drugs, giving the country one of the highest addiction 
rates in the world.

As his wife and some of his seven children look on with a mixture of 
contempt and amusement, he and two fellow addicts crouch in a sordid, grimy 
room and "chase the dragon" - junkie jargon for inhaling the fumes from 
heroin heated over foil.

"I took refuge in drugs, hoping they would calm me down and make things 
better but I'm even more miserable now," he says, slurring his words.

"I use heroin. This is my life..."

Javad has gone looking for jobs but says they always turn him down.

His wife Maryam has had enough. She interrupts with a torrent of vituperation.

"Miserable people like us should just die at home from hunger or thirst," 
she says.

"I'm too embarrassed to ask anyone for help any more. Everyone is using 
drugs. The government should put a stop to it."

Border war on drugs

The Iranian Government is increasingly enlisting the support of 
non-government organisations (NGOs) to combat demand for narcotics.

It is partly a problem of availability.

Iran straddles a major smuggling route to the West from neighbouring 
Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium and its derivatives, 
morphine and heroin.

So drugs are plentiful here, and cost a lot less than replacement therapy.

Iran's long and mountainous eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan is 
virtually impossible to seal.

More than 3,200 members of the Iranian security forces have died in clashes 
with drug traffickers and every year, tons of narcotics are seized but 
optimistic estimates are that only about 30% of the inflow may be being 
intercepted.

Cutting demand

"Even if we built a steel wall all around the country, drugs would find a 
way in, as long as there's a demand for them," admits General Mohammad 
Fallah, head of Iran's Drug Control Headquarters (DCHQ).

The new emphasis on trying to curb demand, while keeping up the struggle to 
halt the supply.

"In our new budget, about 50% is allocated for demand reduction 
activities," says Mejid Derakhshan, head of the DCHQ's cultural section.

The DCHQ has sponsored a series of hard-hitting TV advertisements and is 
waging an information campaign in schools and universities.

It is also setting up a special new department to co-ordinate with the NGOs.

Refuge

One NGO, the Anti-Addiction Association, was set up by a woman MP, Soheila 
Jelodarzadeh, who compares the problem to cancer.

"Addiction is much more dangerous than cancer, because it spreads 
exponentially," she says.

"To sustain his habit, an addict has to sell drugs to at least 10 other 
people."

The Association, and other NGOs such as Narcotics Anonymous and the Aftab 
(Sunshine) Society, provide a humane and enlightened refuge for addicts who 
want to try to shed their habit.

"Here, they treat you with respect, not like some sort of criminal," says 
Saeed, who was a serious addict for 12 years until he went to the association.

Hossein Dejakam, the former addict who set up the Aftab Society, believes a 
lack of professional expertise is one of the factors inhibiting the 
struggle to stem the spread of abuse.

"We don't have a single expert on addiction," he says.

Positive trend

Drug control authorities are alarmed that in addition to the traditional 
poppy-based narcotics from Afghanistan, synthetic drugs are also starting 
to appear on the Iranian scene from other sources.

But supply and availability also have an impact in creating demand, says 
Antonio Mazzitelli, Iran representative of the UN's Drug Control Programme 
(UNDCP).

Iran had been bracing for a renewed flood of narcotics, because poppy 
cultivation resumed in Afghanistan this spring.

Ironically, in this respect Iran was better off with the Taleban as 
neighbours, because they imposed a successful ban on cultivation last year.

But the expected new influx has not yet happened - perhaps because the 
narcotics are being refined and sent to the West via more northerly routes 
which bypass Iran.

The UNDCP's Antonio Mazzitelli is cautiously optimistic that if the supply 
situation remains restricted and efforts to curb demand are redoubled, 
Iran's drug crisis could start to turn around.

"If this supply trend continues at least one or two more years, we will 
start to record a dramatic reduction in drug abuse and in new drug abusers 
in Iran," he says.
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