The rate of drug addicts and dealers has been on an alarming rise in Iraq in recent years, despite strict measures taken by the Iraqi government to curb the phenomenon.
“In 2023, more than 19,000 drug suspects were arrested, and around four tons of narcotics and 15 tons of psychotropic substances were seized,” Miqdad Miri, spokesperson for Iraq’s Ministry of Interior, told Rudaw’s Nahro Mohammed on Thursday.
Around 15 thousand suspects were arrested and more than 400 kilograms of narcotics were confiscated in 2022.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani in May highlighted the dangerous spread of narcotics in the country at the first Baghdad Conference on Drug Control, stating that terrorism and drugs are “two sides of the same crime.”
Sudani has ordered the establishment of rehabilitation centers in all Iraqi provinces, excluding the Kurdistan Region, as part of his cabinet’s commitment to combat growing drug trade and use as seriously as the country fights terrorism.
