ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Parliament candidates addressed a rising trend in the use of recreational drugs in the Kurdistan Region during a Rudaw program, tracing the increase to a lack of comprehensive strategy along with limited social and economic opportunities. Participants of Rudaw’s Chwar Bazna (Four Constituencies) program warned that there is a surge in drug and narcotics use across the Kurdistan Region. Abdulkhaliq Talaat, the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) candidate, emphasized that to curb the usage, the focus should also be on other parts of Iraq and neighboring countries where the substances are mostly smuggled. “If we want to talk about the drugs in Kurdistan Region, it is better to mention Iraq because, within cities in Iraq, it has been distributed in an unimaginably huge amount,“ Talaat told Rudaw. The KDP candidate traced the issue partly due to porous borders through which narcotics are smuggled into Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. ”Iranian border and adjacent cities that are close to the Iranian border have the main role in smuggling these substances to Iraq, and from Iraq to Kurdistan Region,” he said. There has been an alarming rise in drug dealing and use in Iraq in recent years despite strict measures taken by the government to limit the phenomenon. In October, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said the Region is intensifying its efforts to combat the threat of drugs, calling on Kurdish and international communities to cooperate with Erbil to eliminate what he described as an “endemic” problem. Karwan Khoshnaw, The People’s Front (Baray Gal) candidate, reiterated that “in the Kurdistan Region day by day and year by year the threat of drugs is growing more.” Khoshnaw said that the lack of a program on a government level to employ the new graduates and the youth has pushed the younger population towards the use of drugs and psychedelics. Nozhan Uzeri, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) candidate, pointed out that there has been an increase in arrests due to drug-related offenses in the Kurdistan Region. “Based on the research I have done, twelve people are getting arrested on a daily basis due to illegal substances,” said Uzeri. He added that this is a 20 percent growth from the previous year. In March, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) labor and social affairs ministry also warned about the spread of drugs, stressing that authorities had recorded an increase in drug usage and trade among women, in particular. The candidates warned that the phenomenon threatens the fate of the Region. Derya Mohammed a candidate of the National Stance Movement (Halwest) highlighted statistics on drug-related arrests in the Kurdistan Region, showing that drug use has increased significantly over the past decades, “Unfortunately, according to the available data, before 1991, we only had three cases of drug use in the Kurdistan Region,” Mohammed said, noting a sharp increase in cases of drug use, with 200 cases in 2023, recorded in the city of Koya alone. “This statistic is very, very alarming and dangerous,” he said. In 2023, more than 19,000 people were arrested across Iraq on drug-related charges, and over 15 tons of psychotropic substances were seized and destroyed. Iraq’s judiciary has handed down strict sentences for drug-related crime, including 140 death sentences and 500 life imprisonment sentences (20 years in Iraqi law) for smugglers and dealers since the start of 2023, according to data from the Interior Ministry.
