TEHRAN -- Obviously, countries pay a hefty price in their struggle against the transit of illicit drugs. With due regard to its humanitarian objectives, Iran has tried its utmost in the battle against drugs, without much help from Western countries. We believe that if the international community is serious in confronting the ominous phenomenon of drug addiction, they must pay a part of these expenses, so that drugs will not pour into our country, as well as be transited to Western countries.

Iran has 22 million youngsters who are the center of attention by both friend and foe. Obviously they can be quite productive if they are treated properly , or, they can be lured into drug addiction. As a matter a fact, we can take advantage of this potentially huge force for good if responsible organizations and officials are well coordinated and major decisions are made transparently.

In fact, we do not intend to chant slogans in this article but the fact is that despite the good efforts of the past two decades, we have not been very successful in confronting and solving drug addiction. We have not even taken advantage of trial- and- error methods properly. Now, what we must discover is that how drug addiction has turned into a complex dilemma and why are there so many teenagers lured towards drugs? We have learned from experience that interim, uncoordinated, and chaotic actions do not solve problems. They might even lead to negative impacts. We have to stop chanting slogans. First of all, its just about time to end to our differences of opinion about definitions. We have to accept that we have not even had a unified definition of drug addiction, yet.

The Law Enforcement Forces and the Judiciary that are two main organizations, consider drug addiction to be a crime and would like to punish drug addicts. On the other hand, the Ministry of Health, physicians and psychologists consider drug addicts as patients. They believe that drug addiction is a chronic disease.

We do not want to reject any of these definitions in this article. But we believe that in order to combat drug addiction we must first reach a unified definition and thereafter make our macro decisions based on the said definition. One has to remember that the current social conditions of our country are an exceptional case and the bright future of this country depends on the health and prosperity of the youth community so that we could expect a sustainable and consolidated development in this turbulent world.

In the end, one has to reiterate that today's negligence of drugs addiction will lead to a very complex crisis in the forthcoming future. We should not be taken by surprise.