Iraq: Officials Complain of Rising Drug Use, Trafficking

[sabra]

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/429/iraq.shtml

Iraq: Officials Complain of Rising Drug Use, Trafficking 3/31/06

Three years after the US invasion of Iraq, drug trafficking and addiction are on the rise, officials at the country's Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs told the United Nations' humanitarian news agency, IRIN, Monday. The remarks were prompted by large drugs seizures in recent weeks.

The primary illicit drugs being used are heroin, cocaine, and marijuana, with grams of heroin or cocaine going for $20 to $30 dollars, ministry officials said. (Previous reports have noted widespread abuse of prescription drugs as well.) They said the heroin is coming from Afghanistan and Iran and the cocaine is somehow arriving from South America.

"We estimate that more than 5,000 Iraqis are consuming drugs in the south today, especially heroin, compared with 2004, when there were only around 1,500," said Dr Kamel Ali, a senior official in the health ministry's anti-narcotics program. "We fear the number could be as high as 10,000 countrywide."

Officials singled out the Shiite south as a problem area. It is unclear what effective authority the Baghdad government or its anti-drug ministries have in the restive Sunni parts of the country. Police have carried out more than 50 raids since September in Kerbala, 70 miles south of Baghdad, alone, they said.


Iraqi children sniffing glue -- photo from
IRIN, the UN's humanitarian news agency

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Let freedom reign!

Who knows, if this goes on Iraq can be just like a real live 60's style stinking american ghetto.

[RufusEarl]

2. Well it's one way to pacify a country,

get them strung out on junk. And how in the hell our they getting coke in Iraq? it's hard to get good coke in Texas.