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50,000 drug addicts rounded up in Iran capital in past 9 months |
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Friday, 14 January 2005 |
Iran Focus
 Tehran, Jan. 14 - More than 50,000 people have been arrested in Greater Tehran in the past nine months, according to the head of the Office to Combat Narcotics in Greater Tehran.
"A large proportion of those in custody, who comprise people from different sectors of society, are between 25 and 30 years of age", Major Ghodratollah Mahmoudi said in an interview with a state-run news agency on Wednesday.
"These individuals were arrested in different districts in Tehran and the majority of them used opium, cannabis, and heroin and only a small percentage used cocaine, morphine, and other narcotics", he added.
Mahmoudi said that cannabis was increasingly used by individuals between the ages of 18 and 35.
In the interview Mahmoudi said that in the past nine months alone more than 700 kilograms of narcotics had been confiscated from addicts in the capital, adding that this figure was separate from the much larger amounts of narcotics "discovered in the hands of drug lords".
Certain departments and officials within the Iranian regime are suspected of involvement in narcotics trafficking.
Mashad (northeast Iran), another key Iranian city, is also home to drug addicts, according to the head of the city's Central Medical Bureau.
"According to recent statistics there are 150,000 drug addicts at present in Mashad", Rajab Hedayatnia said.
The total number of illegal-drug users in Iran stands at more than seven million. |
