ray takeyh, middle east studies director of the council on foreign relations and author of hidden iran: paradox and power in the islamic republic, agrees with me.

during a CFR panel discussion this past week he mentioned that iran has a substance abuse problem:

I think that there’s a serious drug addiction. The estimates are about 2 million Iranian youth are addicted to largely the narcotics that are coming through Afghanistan. And there’s been a lot of cooperation between Iran and the United Nations and others in terms of how to deal with the question of narcotic exports and drug addiction and interdiction of that. It’s particularly the Afghan-Iranian border, which is largely a no-man land.

Those efforts have been going on in the U.N. How can the United States help? Buy up the Afghan drug crops.