Te problem of illicit narcotics is one of the most complex challenges currently facing Iranian society. Due to the Iranian political structure and its ideological and religious sensitivity to drug use, however, there is little awareness of these issues outside the country. Tis makes our description of illicit drug production, trafficking, and consumption in the Islamic Republic of Iran one of the first of its kind to appear in the Western literature. As a result of its geographical position between drug producing nations on its eastern borders and drug consuming nations in the West, the Islamic Republic of Iran suffers in multiple ways from the spillover of the drug trade. For example, drug traffickers are using Iran’s territory as the shortest major land route for transit of narcotics from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Europe. The Iranian government currently spends about 400 million U.S. dollars annually at the national level to fight drug transit and trafficking through the country.
