Iran Has Drug Policy Praised by UNODC and a High Rate of Opium Addiction
Marya Hannun has written a blog post for Foreign Policy on the war on drugs and Iran, a country which the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has praised as having the "one of the world's strongest counter-narcotics responses."
According to the U.N., Iran seizes more heroin and opiates than any other country. Interestingly, Hannun's post also point's out that Iran has one of the world's highest rates of opium addiction, which makes you wonder why the UNODC considers its strong counter-narcotics response is worthy of praise.
Unsurprisingly, Iran's tactics have come under criticism from Human Rights Watch. From Foreign Policy:
But Iran's victory has come at a steep price. According to Human Rights Watch, the past few years have seen a dramatic increase in drug-related executions in the Islamic Republic. In 2011 alone, 81 percent of the country's over 600 executions were due to drug-related offenses, including the use of narcotics.
As Hannun says at the end of the post, "If this is what victory in the war on drugs looks like, it makes you wonder whether it's a battle that can ever be truly won."