The price of drugs has increased 30 percent in Iran following the Iranian border police tight control over the country's borders, Press TV reported.
"The price of drugs has increased 30 percent in Iran after we toughened our border activities to prevent drug smuggling into the country," local police commander Hossein Zolfaghari said in an interview with Fars news agency.
The Iranian commander further pointed out that border police activities over drug smuggling will even be toughened next year.
"Police is also trying to arrest drug smugglers to reduce the harm inside the country," he added.
Iran lies on a transit corridor between opium-producing Afghanistan and drug dealers in Europe. To counter drug trafficking, the Iranian government has deployed thousands of security personnel along its eastern borders and has built over 1,000 kilometers of embankments, canals, trenches, and cement walls.
Drug production in Afghanistan has increased dramatically since the US-led invasion eight years ago.
According to a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region has become one of the world's largest free-trade zones for anything illicit, from drugs and weapons to illegal immigration.
The UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa has praised Iran for its efforts in stemming the flow of drugs from Afghanistan to the West.
"The anti-narcotics police in Iran are among the best in the world," he said in May 2009.