Grace Period Ends; Iran Plans to Arrest 55,000 Drug Addicts

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Iran’s drug users took their last fix Saturday before addiction becomes an offense punishable by internment in labor camps.

Officials vowed to arrest 55,000 drug addicts in an initial crackdown starting today under a tough anti-narcotics law enacted in January. The law had granted a six-month grace period.

The Islamic Revolutionary Committee said agents would set up checkpoints in many towns and cities to round up addicts.

Those detained will be sent to a network of labor camps and put to hard labor--building roads, digging canals, planting trees--during the day and locked up at night.

Iran has executed more than 700 drug traffickers since January when it declared all-out war on drug abuse. Officials estimate there are a million drug addicts among Iran’s more than 50 million people.

The January law makes possession of one ounce of heroin or 11 pounds of opium a capital offense.

“To save our country’s youth, we have decided to punish the smugglers with no mercy at all,” Prosecutor General Mohammed Moussavi Khoeiniha said.

Official statements indicate drug addiction has increased since the 1979 Islamic revolution, afflicting all sections of society with little discrimination in sex, age or class.