IRANIAN AUTHORITIES STEP UP DRUG CONTROL ON IRANIAN-AFGHANI BORDER

TEHRAN - One ton of drugs will be burnt publicly on the beach in the
southern province Monday, an official in Iran's Hormuzgan Anti-Drug
Committee, Mansour Nabizadeh reported. Speaking at a gathering of the
committee, he said heroin and hashish form the major portion of this bulk,
IRNA agency informs. "The move is in line with efforts to raise public
awareness of the drug menace and soothe a feeling of despair and
disappointment as regards the anti-drug policy," he is quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, half-a-ton of drugs has been recently burned in a symbolic
gesture in the central city of Yazd.

Iran is a major route for smuggling drugs from Afghanistan and Pakistan to
markets in the Persian Gulf, Europe and beyond, the Anti-Drug Committee
official pointed out. Opium, heroin, hashish and morphine are transported
through the country. Iranian authorities stepped up drug control on the
frontiers by setting up new outposts and an electronically monitored barbed
wire fence along the 945-kilometer border with Afghanistan. For the
implementation of the project to upgrade border posts, 200 billion rials
(about $25 million) was allocated.

Official reports say 3,100 Iranian police officers have been killed in
drug-related skirmishes throughout Iran over the past twenty years.