Some 700,000 drug addicts under treatment in Iran

Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 20 / Trend, N. Umid, S. Isayev

About 700,000 drug addicts are under treatment for addiction in Iran, manager of the prevention and drug issues office of Iran's Welfare Organization, Mohammad Nafariyeh said, ISNA news agency reported.

He went on to note that, Iran's Welfare Organization has undertaken treating some 512,000 drug addicts across the country.

Nafariyeh said that some 5,000 addiction treatment centers are active in Iran, with about 2,300 of centers belonging to the Welfare Organization.

The other addiction treatment centers are being managed by the Iran Drug Control Headquarters, Iran's Health Ministry, Law Enforcement Forces of Islamic Republic of Iran and Municipalities.

In February, Iranian media outlets quoted Iran's National Police Chief Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam as saying about 2 million of drug addicts live in Iran.

Between 1-1.3 million people consume narcotics permanently and about 700,000 people consume occasionally, he added.

It has been reported that 500 tons of drugs were seized during the last solar year (ended on March 10) in the country, with 115 tons of that amount being seized during the first 3 months of the Iranian calendar.

Iran shares about 900 kilometers of common border with Afghanistan, through which about 74 percent of opium smuggling goes through.