Posted on 07/03/2012 9:43:47 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
According to Iran's Minister of Health, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, approximately 10 million people now cope with drug addiction in Iran. Speaking on the occasion of the International Day Against Drug abuse, Dastjerdi noted that over the past few months, the quantity of both drugs and alcohol seized by authorities from Iranian citizens has topped 400 tons. In particular, alcohol (a formally-banned substance) has become increasingly popular among Iranians, and confiscation of alcoholic beverages by regime authorities has increased by 69 percent over the past year. (Tehran Fars, July 2, 2012)
(Excerpt) Read more at afpc.org ...
I contract in Afghanistan, with ANA on the FOB with Marines, where the smell of mary jane is potent from the ANA’s sub-compound.
Not much in the way of alcohol, but drugs are prevalent.
"[Editors' Note: Iran has long ranked as one of the world's most addicted countries. Still, the statistics outlined by Dastjerdi - if accurate - represent a notable increase of drug abuse within the Islamic Republic. Based upon the figures cited above, some 12.5 percent of Iran's nearly 79 million person population is now addicted to narcotics in some form.] "
Aren't these the guys who invented hashish?
yitbos
“Aren’t these the guys who invented hashish?”
Well, back in the day, it was told to me that the best came from Afghanistan/Iran area.....sooooooo......yes!
heroin addiction is the big problem: it’s cheap and available all over, and it is being grown in Afghanistan and piped through Iran to Europe, but a lot of it is diverted to locals.
We don’t hear a lot about this problem in the USA,
Alcohol is forbidden under Islam, but heroin is the big problem.
Prohibition Doesn’t Work !
Despair is quite the motivator for controlled substances, and there’s plenty of both in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
They also execute drug dealers and smugglers every day. Usually by hanging and sometimes publicly.
IMO, drug abuse and addiction are barely affected by prohibition at all in a somewhat free society. It's easy money and the vast majority of drug deals go through. Someone can make drugs more valuable than gold with a few square feet of soil or a few jars in a trunk. These aren't murders or robberies where there is a victim every time. The only way to put a dent in the drug trade is by having surveillance of everyone.
Prohibition only answers the question of how much addicts need to spend and who gets the profits:
-Someone becomes addicted to a substance under prohibition. They end up stealing a $5,000 air conditioner/jewelry/etc, pawning it for a couple hundred every day until they end up in jail paid for by taxpayers at $5000/month. Then they are labeled felons so they can never be productive citizens in their lives and repeat this cycle until they die. The drug market is cornered by violent criminals who end up on the Forbes 500. The drugs are dirty and unstandardized. This floods our emergency rooms with the injured and overdosed.
OR
-Someone becomes addicted without prohibition. They maintain their addiction by spending less than they do on food and are always free to return to productive society should they beat the addiction. The drugs are sold by legal pharmacies who settle disputes in court and not through be-headings. The drugs are pure and standardized so medical emergencies are rare.
Also there is the question of how many civil liberties we need to sacrifice and how much power we give to ever more corrupt police to fight a pointless battle.
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