IRAN POLICE BLAME US, UK FOR FLOW OF AFGHAN DRUGS

TEHRAN, June 26: Iran's police blamed Britain and the United States for bumper poppy crops in Afghanistan that are inflaming social problems in a country where more than two million people are drug addicts.

Iranian forces marked the UN International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Tehran on Saturday by blowing up a huge mound of seized drugs topped with a picture of a bat-like monster with blood-red eyes.

They chanted "Death to America" as the contraband exploded.

"We hold America and Britain responsible for this situation ...  Americans are in charge of Afghanistan's security and Britons are responsible for fighting fight drugs there," said anti-narcotics commander Mehdi Abuee.

Iran is the main route for Afghan drugs heading west.

The police announced they reckoned almost 48,560 hectares of Afghan farms were under poppy cultivation, adding this was unprecedented in the country's history.

Iran has built chains of walls and forts across its porous eastern borders but smugglers have gone back to old ways, taking drugs through mountain passes by rucksack and camel.

"Only 10 per cent of poppy farms have been destroyed and of what remains, 4,100 tons of opium will be produced this season," Abuee added.

Many Afghan farmers felled their citrus groves to turn to the more lucrative crop.

Some 3,300 Iranian servicemen have died in battles with traffickers since the 1979 revolution.

"This is an on-going, all-out, weary war," Abuee said.

PUBLIC CAMPAIGNS: Iran, where 70 per cent of the population is under 30, is open about its drugs problem has shown drug awareness programmes on television through the week.

Cartoons for children showed an addict in a park turn into a skeleton then flake to dust.

Opium smoking has been the traditional Iranian vice and is ingrained in the culture of southern provinces.

But programmes for youngsters focused on the risks of recreational drugs such as ecstasy, taken at raves where young people let off steam from the strict confines of their society.

Last year Iran said it seized three tons of heroin, 72 tons of hashish and 111 tons of opium.

But Ali Hashemi, head of the presidential anti-narcotics staff said this was only about 10 percent of the opium flooding across the border.

Hashemi said fighting drugs should be an important focus for international co-operation.

"Political differences aside, we welcome cooperation with any country to defuse this dangerous phenomenon," he said.

He added economic dependence, lack of powerful central government and the international drug mafia were to blame for the increase in Afghan poppy cultivation.

"Apart from the 4 percent of Iran's population who are addicts, the rest ask why the Western powers are not using the new opportunity in Afghanistan to put an end to drugs problem in the world," Hashemi said.-Reuters