“The total number of people arrested in the Anbar Narcotics Directorate this year … amounted to 641 accused of being a dealer, promoter, and user of narcotics and psychotropic substances,” Brigadier General Akram Mishaan Turki al-Rasheed, the director of the Anbar drugs directorate, told Iraqi state media.
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.
“More than 8 million captagon narcotic pills and 21 kilograms of narcotic hashish were seized, in addition to 18 kilograms of heroin during this year,” Rasheed said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-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.
On Sunday, a court in Kirkuk handed life sentences to two people convicted of trafficking drugs.
In late October, Iraqi security forces busted two “dangerous” drug trafficking networks in the southern Dhi Qar province.
Around 15,000 people were arrested on drug-related charges in Iraq in 2022 and more than 400 kilograms of narcotics were confiscated, according to the General Directorate of Narcotics Control in Iraq’s Ministry of Interior.
