Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, May 05 There are between 250,000 and 300,000 drug users in Iran who are in great danger due to their addiction, an official in the countrys health ministry announced on Thursday. Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, May 05 There are between 250,000 and 300,000 drug users in Iran who are in great danger due to their addiction, an official in the countrys health ministry announced on Thursday.
Farid Barati-sedeh, head of the office of prevention of drug addiction at the ministry said that the figure constituted 12.5 percent of Irans drug addicts. His comments were reported Thursday by the state-run daily Kargozaran.
In November, the government released statistics showing that one person died every two hours from drug addiction-related illnesses in Iran.
Official surveys show that drug smuggling and sales in Iran is approximately a 10-billion-dollar market each year.
Previous estimates have put the total number of illegal-drug users in Iran at more than seven million.
Irans government is under close scrutiny for the level of narcotics found in Iranian cities. Many experts fear that certain departments and officials within the Iranian regime are overseeing foreign narcotics imports.
