IRI offers 3 initiatives for anti-narcotics campaign

Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar discussed IRI's three initiatives for campaign against narcotic drugs abuse Monday at a UN 55th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna. According to IRNA, the first proposal of the Islamic Republic of Iran was “The need for paying due attention to a comprehensive approach on the narcotic drugs problem in Afghanistan, inclusive of expansion and fortifying the economic, and social infrastructures, annihilation of the laboratories for turning the narcotics into new addictive substances, and precise supervision at the origin in exporting the raw materials for production of industrial drugs. Also Secretary of Iran’s National Drugs Control Headquarters, Najjar defined the second proposal as establishment of a practical strategy for serious participation and taking advantage of the regional potentials, free from political restraints, aimed at positively influencing the anti-narcotic programs. The IRI Interior Minister said that the cooperation of international organizations with the frontline countries of campaign against narcotic drugs trafficking, proportionate with the extent of the conducted operations and the expenditures by those countries, based on the shared responsibility, as the third proposal of Iran to the Vienna UN gathering. Mohammad-Najjar then expressed hope that the UN 55th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in the course of the discussions, round tables, resolutions and side sessions would manage to find practical strategies in campaign against narcotic drugs trafficking, and thus take a positive step in solving the international problem and decrease the pains of the human kind.

"Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar discussed IRI's three initiatives for campaign against narcotic drugs abuse Monday at a UN 55th Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna"“Despite the efforts made by the international society and the specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as the UNODC, and ratification of numerous international documents, the big problem of narcotic drugs misusage still exists as strongly as ever before,” the interior minister said. “According to the UNODC 2011 report, the area under cultivation of poppy flower cultivation in Afghanistan in the year 2011 increased 7% compared to the year before, reaching 131 thousand hectares from 123 thousand hectares in the year 2010, 95 percent of which were cultivated in the southern and western provinces of that country,” he added. “Unfortunately, the number of provinces clean from poppy cultivation that had increased from 17 provinces UP to 20 in the year 2011 and in Baqlan and Faryab provinces in the north and Kapisa in the east, too, there were reports on cultivation of this plant," he regretted. According to the Iranian minister, lowering the production of opium in Afghanistan which had started in the year 2008 was reversed in the year 2011 and according to the UNODC estimation, the production of that narcotic in Afghanistan with 61% increase from 3,600 tons in the year 2010 increased up to 5,800 tons in 2011.” Mohammad-Najjar reiterated, “The mentioned worrying statistics and information raise numerous questions around the reasons for defeat of the conducted moves for campaign against the poppy cultivation, narcotic drugs’ production, and particularly the situation in Afghanistan.” He added, “Increasing the area of poppy flower cultivation in vast parts of the western provinces up to 20 percent and in eastern provinces several folds greater, has paved the path for boosting narcotic drugs production and trafficking