Drug trafficking costs Iran USD 8.5bn yearly

“Drug trafficking inflicts an annual damage of about $8.5 billion on Iran's economy,” Mehr news agency quoted Taheri as saying on Saturday.

The Iranian official rejected a United Nations' report which named Iran as the world's biggest drug consumer.

“The UN report exaggerated drug consumption in Iran,” he added. “It has many flaws.”

Iran lies on a transit corridor between opium-producing Afghanistan and drug dealers in Europe. To counter drug trafficking, the Iranian government deploys thousands of security personnel along its eastern borders, having erected over 1,000 kilometers of embankments, canals, trenches, and cement walls.

UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa has praised Iran for its efforts to stem the flow of drugs from Afghanistan to the West.

“The anti-narcotics police in Iran are among the best in the world,” he said in May 2009.

Iranian police officials maintain that drug production in Afghanistan has had a 40-fold increase since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

/Press TV/