TABRIZ Police in the northwestern East Azarbaijan Province have arrested 88 drug traffickers and addicts since the start of the new Iranian calendar year in March 21, 2001, provincial police spokesman Major Samad Faramarzi said on Monday.

They also confiscated some 15kg of morphine, seven kilograms of opium as well as 66kg of heroin from the drug traffickers in the period, he added.

According to the official, some 303 people in total were arrested during the period in the province on various charges, including drug-related offenses.

He said police discovered over 200 counts of offenses, ranging from theft to murder, which are under legal action.

Iran is located at the crossroads of known international drug routes from drug producing countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan to markets in Europe, the Persian Gulf and Central Asian states.

The scourge of the international drug trade is felt even more by this country which continues to pay the price in lives and resources to wipe out the menace.

Statistics for 1999 cite 740 drug dealers and 174 Iranian police officers as having lost their lives in various encounters throughout the country, not to mention the tens of thousands whose lives are wrecked and those of their families because of addiction.

Iranian authorities have stepped up surveillance along the borders by ordering the setting up of outposts and an electronically monitored barbed wire fence along the 945-kilometer border with Afghanistan. A budget of 200 billion rials ($25 million) was allocated for the project.

Deputy commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Police (IRIP) Brigadier General Mohsen Ansari recently said that 3,000 Iranian police officers had been killed in drug-related battles throughout the country since 1981.

The country spends some Rls.120 billion annually on the fight against drug trafficking, he said.

(IRNA)