FAST-GROWING DRUG TRADE ENVELOPS IRAN

TEHRAN - A gram of heroin costs about USc40 here. That's cheaper than
milk and almost as plentiful, and it is causing Iran's leaders no end
of headaches.

Sandwiched between Afghanistan, the world's biggest producer of
opium, and the lucrative, but illegal drug markets of Europe and the
Persian Gulf, Iran finds itself with a massive and growing drug problem.

In the past decade, the Iranian authorities have seized a staggering
1.7 million kilos of drugs -- opium, heroin, morphine and hashish --
more than any other nation in the world, says the United Nations Drug
Control Program. The annual haul is about 200 tonnes of opium and six
tonnes of heroin.

Police have found the contraband stuffed in books, woven into carpets
or loaded on drug-addicted camels that are trained to travel alone
across the desert.

More often than not, the drugs are simply driven into the country
aboard dozens of heavily armed convoys that seek to infiltrate Iran
each day.

Smugglers criss-cross the deserts along Iran's eastern borders with
Afghanistan and Pakistan in a steady stream of camel caravans and
four-wheel drive trucks. They are armed with machine guns, rocket
launchers, anti-aircraft missiles, satellite telephones and night
vision equipment.

"The production of illicit drugs in Afghanistan is astonishingly
high," says Mohammad Fallah, director of Iran's Drug Control
Headquarters. "It flows from the country like water from the tap. We
are having greater success in cutting down the flow. But our task is
difficult."

In just one day in early June, police seized more than a tonne of
opium and 200 kilograms of morphine. They also killed nearly a dozen
drug traffickers in a series of major gun battles.

Iran averages 1,445 major armed confrontations with drug traffickers
each year, with up to seven major gun battles taking place each day.

In the past 20 years in what amounts to a low-key war, 3,100 Iranian
police and soldiers have died in drug-related shootouts. Nearly 10,000
drug traffickers have been shot or executed.

Last year, 183 police and 740 drug smugglers died in
shootouts.

Iran's war on drugs has become so far-reaching, that Kamal Aqaie,
writing in the monthly magazine Payame Emrooz, an economic and
cultural journal, estimates up to 30% of the country's security
budget, 60% of its prison budget and 70% of the activities of the
revolutionary courts are devoted to fighting drug traffickers.

The traffickers also overload the country's prisons -- 70% of the
150,000 people behind bars are there for drug-related offences.

Although police fear they are intercepting only about 20% of all the
drugs in transit through Iran, they are still seizing sizeable amounts.

Their heroin seizures alone amount to the combined annual street
consumption of heroin in Britain and Italy.

Still, tonnes of drugs manage to cross the border undetected.

"Iran is the main gateway for illicit drugs from Afghanistan to the
West," says Antonio Mazzitelli, the head of the United Nations' Drug
Control Program office in Tehran. "It's the simplest and most direct
route."

According to the United Nations, Afghanistan accounts for 75% of the
world's opium production and provides up to 90% of Europe's heroin.

The drugs, which are a major source of income for the country's ruling
Taleban militia, come into Iran daily, along the 1,800-kilometre
porous border, which is mainly desert. Once in Iran, the drugs are
rerouted to Turkey and the Balkans, and from there on to the Gulf
states or Europe.

In recent years, an alternative route has been developed to move drugs
through Tajikistan and Russia into Eastern Europe, before going on to
the West.

Iran has already spent more than US$1-billion to try to seal its
borders by building fortifications. It has blocked mountain passes
with walls of concrete, and created hundreds of military outposts,
observation towers and electric fencing.

In recent months, it has also armed and trained thousands of villagers
to combat heavily armed drug traffickers in their areas. This is in
addition to deploying more than 30,000 combat troops and police along
the eastern border.

European nations, such as France and Britain, have started to
supplement the Iranian government's anti-drug programs by offering aid
in the form of drug-sniffing police dogs. They have also donated
bullet-proof vests and night vision goggles.

But so far, there has been little let-up in the smuggling of drugs.
Iranian officials worry that up to 40% of the illegal drugs entering
the country are being diverted to fuel growing demand from an
ever-increasing pool of home-grown addicts.

Hossein Dezhapam, the head of the Iranian Society for Combatting
Illegal Drugs, told an addiction treatment seminar in Tehran recently
the country has more than 1.2-million hard core drug addicts and
another 800,000 casual drug users.