In a recent essay published by the Financial Times (UK), Kamim Mohammadi said that "There are an estimated 2 million drug addicts in Iran, though some put the real figure as high as 6 million. This is a significant proportion of a population of nearly 70 million -- the U.S., for instance, has 1 million opiate addicts in a population of about 295 million. Iran borders Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium, and there has always been a tradition of social opium smoking; but the big change is the move to cheap and available heroin." -- She did not report, however, that many Iranians believe that "the United States supports the expansion of global drug smuggling and addiction, because, it 'exacerbates poverty, increases moral corruption, and keeps people backwards,'" as the Tehran Times noted on Jul. 14. -- Most Americans will dismiss such claims out of hand, but Peter Dale Scott has written at length about "a U.S. strategy of indirect intervention in Third World Countries through alliances with drug-trafficking proxies. This strategy was originally developed in the late 1940s to contain communist China; it has since been used to secure control over foreign petroleum resources. The result has been a staggering increase in the global drug traffic and the mafias assorted with it" (Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina [Lanham, MD, Boulder, CO, New York & Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003], p. xi). -- Until the U.S. ends its repressive drug policies, reduces oil consumption, moves toward a multilateral and equitable oil system, and renounces its drive "to become hegemon," Scott is not optimistic about the prospects for peace in the world....
U.S. PROMOTES DRUG ADDICTION TO 'ASSERT ITS HEGEMONY'
Tehran Times
July 14, 2005
http://www.watchingamerica.com/tehrantimes000011.html
The Iranians claim that the United States supports the expansion of global drug smuggling and addiction, because, it 'exacerbates poverty, increases moral corruption, and keeps people backwards.'
Illegal drugs have affected the entire world. Thus, the entire international community must cooperate in the campaign against the pandemic.
Underlining the need for such cooperation, Ali Hashemi, the director of Iran’s Anti-Drug Headquarters, said that Iran cannot deal with the problem of drug smuggling in the region without the help of other countries.
Iran is a neighbor of Afghanistan, which is currently the center of global poppy cultivation and production. Afghan officials say that studies by the United Nations and Afghanistan’s Anti-Drug Office have shown that poppy cultivation has declined in the Central Asian country, but it is not yet clear to what extent. Should this allay concerns about drug smuggling in the region and the rest of the world?
In 1988, about 350 tons of opium was produced in Afghanistan. By 2004, the figure reached 5000 tons. That is to say, there has been a 14-fold increase in Afghan opium production in less than two decades.
Research shows that there has been a 40 percent annual increase in poppy cultivation and opium production since the United States established a military presence in the country in 2001.
With a glance at these alarming statistics, one can easily understand the world’s concern about the scourge of drug smuggling, despite the efforts of the international community, the United Nations, and Afghanistan’s neighbors.
The United States and its allies ostensibly occupied Afghanistan to fight terrorism, the Taliban, and drug smuggling. Instead, the U.S. has become a factor behind the increase in drug smuggling and may even be secretly cooperating with the Taliban.
U.S. forces have taken no serious action to curtail drug production in Afghanistan, because the U.S. is determined to expand global drug addiction and smuggling to help it realize goals.
The expansion of global drug smuggling and addiction, besides providing windfall financial profits, exacerbates poverty, increases moral corruption, and keeps people backwards. This, in turn, helps the U.S. assert its hegemony over the world.
Europe is an ally of the United States in this ominous, neocolonial endeavor, sadly reminiscent of the Opium War. Britain, the aggressor during the original Opium War, has been officially tasked with dealing with the drug problem in Afghanistan, but has taken no useful measures in this regard.
Since the scourge of drugs and its myriad associated problems have no borders, the United States and Europe will without doubt be the final victims of the worldwide plague that they have deliberately helped promote.
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