Police Seize 580kg of Narcotics in Northwestern Iran

Iranian Law Enforcement Police troops have discovered and seized over half a ton of different types of narcotics in the country's Northwestern province of Zanjan during the last nine months, a provincial police chief announced on Saturday. Commander of the anti-narcotics squad of Zanjan's Law Enforcement Police Marefatollah Jouzi said that since the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2011) police forces have seized 580kg of narcotics throughout the province. He said that police have exercised 37 drug-combat plans during the aforementioned period to intensify the war on narcotics, adding that 30 drug rings have been disbanded and 2,600 drug-traffickers and dealers have been arrested for drug related crimes during the police operations. Jouzi further said that enemies are trying to change addiction behaviors in Iran in a bid to encourage addicts replace conventional narcotics, like opium, hash and heroin, with synthetic drugs as this kind of narcotics and hallucinating drugs have a more destructive impact on the country's young generation. The United Nations has introduced Iran as the world's leading nation in combating drugs and drug-trafficking. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian police have lost more than 3700 of their personnel in the country's combat against narcotics. In the last few years, Iran's Law Enforcement Police have intensified their clampdown on synthetic-drugs production and trafficking, Crystal meth (Methamphetamine) in particular. As a result of these efforts, Iranian anti-drug forces seized hundred tons of different types of synthetic drugs, including more that a ton of Crystal (Methamphetamine), only in the last year. Methamphetamine, a synthetic drug with more rapid and lasting effects than amphetamine, is illegally used as a stimulant. Synthetic drugs have recently been smuggled and distributed in Iran by drug-traffickers who seek to change addiction behaviors in the country and redirect addicts' tendency from conventional drugs, such as opium, heroin and hashish, to those narcotics mostly prevalent in the West, like cocaine, crack, crystal meth and LSD.