DRUGS WREAKING HAVOC ON IRANIAN SOCIETY

Addiction Reaches Epidemic Proportions As Cheap Opium And Heroin
Pour Out Of Neighbouring Afghanistan

Tehran -- In his Tehran neighbourhood, few would have imagined that
Ibrahim was an opium addict. The 60-year-old retired businessman is
small and polite and neatly dressed.

He tried opium for the first time at a party in Tehran, six years ago.
A friend introduced him to the drug. Soon he was hooked.

"I tried it once and it was, wow, taking me to a different world," he
remembers.

"I abandoned my friends and started going alone to that different
world. It's so easy to find opium in Tehran -- it's like a dinner
table waiting for you. At every party, opium is the entertainment. You
can purchase it at news stands, at bus terminals, anywhere."

Ibrahim soon discovered that opium and heroin addicts were everywhere
around him. He began selling some of his drugs to other users. "When
you get into drugs, you realize that your neighbour, your friend or
your relative is also addicted."

The booming production of opium and heroin in neighbouring Afghanistan
is wreaking havoc on Iranian society. At least 1.2 million Iranians
are addicted to drugs -- which cost just a fraction of what addicts
pay in the West. The street price of heroin in Iran is only $3 or $4 a
gram, compared to $300 to $500 in North America.

About two-thirds of Iranian addicts are hooked on opiates, including
opium and its more lethal derivative, heroin.

The effect on Iranian society has been catastrophic.

Hundreds of drug-related deaths are reported every year. Two-thirds of
Iran's prisoners are drug addicts or traffickers. Of the 2,200
officially registered carriers of AIDS, two-thirds became infected by
sharing needles.

"In our country, there aren't many opportunities for recreation, and
alcohol is banned," said Hossein, a Tehran taxi driver and recovering
opium addict.

"The easiest pleasure is drugs. My friends and I would get together
and smoke opium and I didn't realize I was addicted. Then I realized I
needed it every day, every morning when I woke up. For two or three
hours every morning and two or three hours every afternoon, I was
purchasing it or using it or sleeping."

Afghanistan produced a record 4,600 tonnes of opium last year. That's
almost twice as much as in 1998, according to United Nations
estimates, and more than 10 times the amount produced a decade ago.
Afghanistan is now the source of more than 75 per cent of world
production, including up to 90 per cent of the heroin in Western
Europe, and a growing share of the heroin reaching North America.

"The increased production in Afghanistan has had an immediate effect
on Iran," said Antonio Mazzitelli, chief representative of the UN Drug
Control Program in Iran. "Iran is the main gateway for illicit drug
trade from Afghanistan to the West. It's the easiest and most direct
route."

Opium was rarely cultivated in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion
in 1979. But two decades of war have destroyed many irrigation
networks. Poppy fields require much less water than wheat or other
crops.

The crop now provides employment to 200,000 Afghan farmers.

Afghanistan's opium and heroin are smuggled to the West in several
routes. The traditional one is through Iran, to Turkey and the Balkans
and then on to Western Europe. The fastest-growing new route is
through Tajikistan, to Russia and Eastern Europe and then on to the
West.

Along both, drug addiction has risen dramatically in recent years.

Some of the world's highest rates of heroin addiction are found in the
regions around the smuggling routes, including Iran and the former
Soviet republics of Central Asia. In one border province of northern
Iran, about 10 per cent of the population is now reported to be
addicted to drugs. Russia, too, is suffering an epidemic of cheap heroin.

Iran, which has fought fiercely against the drug traffickers, is now
the world leader in drug seizures, with more than 200 tonnes of opium
seized annually. Yet it catches only about 20 per cent of the smuggled
drugs that flow across its borders.

Because of Iranian border patrols, drug producers are building more
processing plants in Afghanistan and Pakistan to turn opium into
heroin, which is easier to hide and transport. Hundreds of processing
labs have been built in the border regions.

Iran seized six tonnes of heroin last year. But it is a losing battle.
A growing number of Iranians, especially the younger generation, are
switching from opium to heroin, which is a cheaper fix and more easily
available.

Iran's booming population and rising youth unemployment is another
major factor. Two-thirds of its population are under the age of 30,
and most are jobless and bored.

Opium has a long history in Iran. Before the 1979 Islamic revolution,
many homes had a "smoking room" for opium smoking. Because of this
tradition, there is less social resistance to drugs today. In fact,
there is little stigmatization -- many addicts watched their relatives
use it at home.

The phenomenon is compounded by the decline of religious fervour and
social solidarity as the Islamic revolution fades into history.

"There is a crisis of ethical and moral values," Mr. Mazzitelli said.
"The young people haven't lived through the ideals of the Islamic
revolution and the war against Iraq. They're looking at Western
culture, music and entertainment as a model. Heroin is much more
appealing to the youth because of the cultural influences."

Iran's religious conservatives argue that the drug problem was
"imposed" on Iran by Western enemies who deliberately introduced drugs
and foreign cultural values to weaken the Islamic faith.

But many addicts say the Islamic regime itself was a factor. "They
banned alcohol, so people replaced it with drugs," said Ibrahim, the
retired businessman.

Ibrahim quit drugs only when he realized how he was jeopardizing his
family. "The money that I should have spent on my family, I was
spending on drugs instead. My son could see that I was addicted. I was
worried that he would get addicted."

Since the 1997 election victory of Iran's reformist president,
Mohammed Khatami, there has been more openness about Iran's social
problems, especially the drug epidemic.

Addiction is increasingly seen as an illness, rather than a crime.
Opium and heroin are discussed openly in the Iranian media.

This openness has also brought the rapid growth of treatment centres.
But many seem to be commercial enterprises, exploiting the drug
epidemic for their own gain. Even worse, some clinics promise a cure
with a few mysterious pills, often based on opium itself.