“The policymakers of the arrogant powers do behind-the-scenes planning to promote drug addiction and licentiousness and weaken moral foundations,” Khamenehi told cadets of the Law Enforcement Forces Tuesday.
“One of the methods used by the arrogant powers to confront independent nations is creating social insecurity and also moral and psychological insecurity in society,” he said.
Khamenehi didn’t say if he thought the United States was promoting drug use within the United States, which has a major drug problem of its own, though nowhere near the scale in Iran, which is rated as having by far the largest proportion of drug users in the world.
The Islamic Republic routinely notes that it spends billions of dollars and has lost thousands of police officers in the war against traffickers. Iran makes close to 90 percent of the world’s total opium seizures because of that effort and because it is the chief route for the export of Afghan drugs.
The Islamic Republic always points to Afghanistan and asserts that drug production in Afghanistan has undergone a 40-fold increase since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001. That is statistically correct, although not entirely relevant; the Taliban suppressed drug production in their final year because over production in previous years had been driving down prices.
Iran blames the current high output in Afghanistan on the United States and Britain. It, however, ignores the fact that drug production is largely concentrated in areas under Taliban control or influence. The provinces with no Taliban presence generally have no opium production any more.
