Iran-Hosseini-Drug
Foreign Ministry spokesman on Monday regretted that the western governments have exercised no serious cooperation in the areas of combat against production and smuggle of illicit drugs.

Talking to reporters, Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said that although the NATO forces have been present in Afghanistan for several years, production of narcotic drugs has witnessed multiple increase.

On proposal of the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on West-Iran cooperation in the area of combat against production and smuggle of narcotic drugs, Hosseini said there is an international commitment to anti-drug campaign in cooperation with the specialized international organizations and countries.

In his last month meeting with Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, Iran's Ambassador to Afghanistan, Fada-Hossein Maleki voiced Iran's readiness to cooperate with the international community and the Afghan government in anti-drug campaign.

During the meeting, the two officials expressed their concern over increase in poppy cultivation and consumption of Hashish in Afghanistan and drug trafficking from Afghanistan to its neighboring states.

According to the UN reports in 2007, Afghanistan is on the top of the list of 20 countries producing opium in the world. There are one million drug addicts in Afghanistan.

The drugs produced in Afghanistan in 2007 well exceeded world demand by as much as 3,000 tons.

The reports also show that, in addition to supplying 90 percent of world opium, Afghanistan has become the world's biggest supplier of cannabis (cultivation is estimated at 70,000 hectares this year).