ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Officials in the Kurdistan Region have revealed a massive surge in drug-related sentences so far this year, but it’s not clear whether increased drug usage or bolstered anti-drug efforts is responsible.
“The use and trafficking of narcotics in the Kurdistan Region has increased a lot,” Ihsan Abdulrahman, head of the Kurdistan Region correctional directorate, told Rudaw on Wednesday.
According to data from Kurdistan Region’s correctional facilities, more than 5,000 people are currently serving sentences, with 1,386 incarcerated on drug-related charges.
Abdulrahman blamed narcotics for many of the instances of killing, divorce and theft in the region.
“In the past years, 50 people would be sentenced with drug [related charges] each year. This year [through May], 400 people have been sentenced,” he said.
Nearly 50 women are serving time in penitentiaries for drug-related charges, the statistics reported.
Abdurahman said the facilities have rehabilitation centers which have helped nearly 80 detainees overcome addiction.
Hussein Yousef al-Tamimi, spokesperson of the general directorate of narcotics and psychotropic substance affairs told Iraqi state media that 6,000 people have been arrested on drug-related charges in Iraq in the first five months of this year.
There is an alarming rise in drug dealing and use in Iraq in recent years, despite strict measures taken by the government to curb the phenomenon.
Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, during a conference on combating the drug trade last October, said that the Region is “seriously and widely working to eradicate and combat” the threat of drugs and called on the Kurdish and international communities to cooperate with Erbil to eliminate the source of what he described an “endemic” problem.
By Didar Abdalrahman
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