Tehran, Iran, Jan. 30
Trend:
Iran’s minister of information and communications technology says that the Iranian Space Research Center has located a poppy farm in a city in the country.
The Iranian Space Research Center found a 70-hectare poppy farm in one of the cities while monitoring the country’s areas under cultivation, Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi has said in a tweet.
“I asked to check all the cities. Technology is still in the service of transparency, although some might not like it,” the minister said.
Poppies are often grown for their colorful flowers, but, one species of poppy, Papaver somniferum, is the source of the narcotic drug opium.
Iran sits on a major drug route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Persian Gulf states. The Islamic Republic shares about 900 kilometers of border with Afghanistan, over which 74 percent of opium is smuggled.
The fight against drug trafficking annually costs Iran about $1 billion, according to official estimates.
According to statistics, there are about two million drug users in Iran.