TEHRAN — The Iranian ambassador to Qatar has said that Iran has suffered a lot of material and moral losses in its fight against drug trafficking.

“According to the Iranian Human Rights Headquarters, more than 90% of the smuggled opium, 72% of the world’s smuggled morphine, and 20% of the world’s smuggled heroin is discovered by the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Hamid Reza Dehghani wrote in a post on his Twitter page. 

Ambassador Dehghani added, “Iran is the main flag bearer of the fight against drugs. Iran has suffered a lot of material and moral damage in the fight against drug trafficking."

As reported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Iran spends millions of dollars annually on border control, including for the construction of expensive barriers along its borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

More than 3,700 Iranian law enforcement forces have been killed and over 12,000 have been maimed in counter-narcotics operations over the last three decades.

Since the beginning of 2012, there have been an increasing number of reports made by the drug enforcement authorities of Iran, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf Arab states on the illegal use of maritime transport for the trafficking of drugs and illicit chemicals from/to the region.