Shahindokht Molaverdi, VP for women and family affairs: "We have a village where every single man has been executed".

Shahindokht Molaverdi, VP for women and family affairs: "We have a village where every single man has been executed". (AlArabia).

An Iranian village has seen every one of its men executed for drug offences, according to a leading Iranian official.

The unnamed village in the east of the country was used as an example of how Tehran is taking a tough line against drug smugglers.

Shahindokht Molaverdi, vice-president for women and family affairs, made the comments to Iranian news agency Mehr.

"We have a village in Sistan and Baluchistan province where every single man has been executed," she said.

"Their children are potential drug traffickers as they would want to seek revenge and provide money for their families. There is no support for these people."

Molaverdi did not name the village, but said that welfare support programmes are providing financial assistance to those who might be otherwise induced into the drugs trade.

Iran is one of the world's leading executioners and capital offences include drug smuggling, homosexuality and adultery.

Tehran put to death more than 289 people in 2014 according to Amnesty International. The condemned are usually hung by cranes in public, although stoning to death remains on the stature books.

Iran is also grappling with a problem of widespread drug addiction. Read the full story here. More here.

'1mn died' from Afghan heroin, drug production '40 times higher' since NATO operation.

'1mn died' from Afghan heroin, drug production '40 times higher' since NATO operation.(RT).Heroin production in Afghanistan increased 40 times since NATO began its ‘War on Terror’ in 2001, the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service stated, adding that more than 1million people have died from Afghan heroin since then.

“Afghan heroin has killed more than 1 million people worldwide since the ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ began and over a trillion dollars has been invested into transnational organized crime from drug sales,” Viktor Ivanov said at the conference on the drug situation in Afghanistan.

Ivanov stressed that the main factor of instability in the war-torn country remains the prosperous heroin industry.

"Any impartial observer must admit the sad fact that the international community has failed to curb heroin production in Afghanistan since the start of NATO’s operation.”

According to his presentation at UN’s 56th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna on March 11, opium growth has increased by 18 per cent from 131,000 hectares to 154,000.

As the situation in Afghanistan changed with NATO withdrawing its troops, Russia along with Afghanistan and the international community must face the new reality and develop an efficient strategy to deal with the heroin problem, explained Ivanov.

Opium production has been central to Afghanistan’s economy ever since US and NATO forces invaded in October 2001. Just before the invasion Taliban had implemented a ban on poppy growing, declaring it to be anti-Islam, which lowered the overall production. But after the West’s involvement, production resumed and now the country produces some 90 per cent of the world’s opium, the great bulk of which ends up on the streets of Europe and Russia.

US and NATO officials have been stuck in a Catch-22 fight against Afghan opium. At the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna in March, Ivanov stated that on the one hand, they are attempting to win the hearts and minds of the local population, which increasingly depends on the cultivation of opium poppy for their livelihood. On the other, they need to cut off finances to the Taliban insurgency, which is fueled by the sale of opium poppy to foreign markets.Hmmmmm......Hamid Karzai’s Brother linked to Afghanistan Heroin Trade.Read the full story here.