“The situation in the country was tough. You are going to try to find work, but there was no work,” he says. “Once, twice and I was addicted (to crystal meth). I was stuck. I couldn’t get out.”
The woman he believed was the love of his life left him.
In this report, drug users in Iraq have been identified by pseudonyms to protect their privacy.
“We don’t have the capacity,” said Colonel Mohammed Alwan, the commander of the drug unit in this part of the capital. “Sometimes we have to delay work because we don’t have the capacity to hold detainees and prisoners, especially with the pandemic.”
He estimates that 10% of the population in his operating area is addicted to drugs, the vast majority of them on crystal meth.
Multiple officials told CNN that the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated drug trafficking in Iraq.
Years of war have seriously broken the Iraqi state, with several powerful forces operating outside the control of the government. Corruption is widespread and the economy is in a seemingly endless downward cycle for most Iraqis.
Iraqi youths struggle to find a job, regardless of their level of education. In 2020, the pandemic dealt a blow to an already fragile economy. According to a fall 2020 World Bank report, millions of Iraqis are expected to fall into poverty as a result of the double shocks of the Covid-19 and a global oil price collapse, fueling Iraq’s economy.
Legions of disenchanted youth trying to escape harsh reality began to increase and the drug trade flourished.
“Drug dealers have their way, they usually give the poor, unemployed people free drugs to lure them into addiction,” explains General Amad Hussein of the Anti-Drug Police, handing out flyers with a hotline number in an impoverished Baghdad. neighborhood.
“That person then starts stealing money to pay for it or they even turn this person into a distributor.”
Under the rule of former president and dictator Saddam Hussein, the maximum penalty for drug use was death. That draconian legislation drove the trade deep underground and kept the streets mostly clean.
The US invasion in 2003, in which the country’s ruthless former ruler was deposed, not only caused chaos in Iraq but also weakened borders, strengthening the drug trade.
Officials here say trade peaked in 2014 with the arrival of ISIS and Captagon, an amphetamine popular among the group’s fighters, who came to Iraq from Syria.
But a US-led coalition campaign against ISIS sparked a reinforced security presence along the Iraqi-Syrian border. Trade then shifted to the predominantly Shia south of Iraq and the porous border with Iran.
The vast majority of crystal meth, which makes up about 60% of the drug trade in Iraq, flows from that border area, senior anti-drug officials tell CNN.
“Neighboring countries are using this to destroy Iraqi society, the Iraqi economy,” said Colonel Alwan. “We have set up several channels with the Iranian side to address this issue, but we have not reached an agreement to address it.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has not responded to CNN’s request for comment on cross-border smuggling operations.
The anti-drug unit, understaffed and underfunded, has not yet captured major merchants across the country, despite nationwide raids. Officials say the beneficiaries of the trade range from Sunni extremist groups and Iranian-backed Shia militias to criminal gangs.
Thuraya was arrested along with her husband in a house where she acted. They owned 300 grams of crystal meth, with a street value of around $ 18,000. The raid also included someone who calls Thuraya her “friend,” an intermediary who regularly fled to the Iranian border to pick up the drug from a supplier.
She is in a women’s prison in Baghdad and says she has only a vague idea of the shadowy supply chain at the border. They got the crystal meth “from the big dealers,” she continues, adding that she has no information about their names and backgrounds.
Thuraya would help smuggle it through checkpoints in the cities where the trio operated, supply it to other dealers, or sell it herself.
The prison in which we meet her is especially for women involved in drugs or prostitution. She says her husband introduced her to crystal meth before their wedding when he saw that she had gone into depression. Her previous marriage had just failed and she had been forcibly estranged from her children.
“As a woman, it’s easy to get through checkpoints. We’re not searched. I’d hide it all over my body,” says Thuraya, pointing to her chest, hips and legs beneath her long black abaya.
Over the years, several insurgents and militias have used women to smuggle explosives and weapons to escape the security forces’ radar. Drug networks have recently increased their recruitment of women to facilitate trafficking in human beings, according to security officials.
“For women working in the drug trade is easier than for men, they can work undercover, they don’t bring much attention to themselves,” says Col Alwan, pulling out his phone to show us pictures of two women. his unit a few days earlier. They are standing behind a table with crystal meth, pipes and the rest of the stock they were found with.
“We don’t have a female power, one that can look for women,” he adds, pointing to one of the photos. “This one told us that she is going to a rented place with a man and tells him that if you want to have sex with me, you have to buy drugs or use drugs.”
Trapped in a web of addiction, users struggle to find a way out. A recent law reform has lifted legal penalties for users seeking help, but many are unaware of this, according to security officials.
Without coming forward, traffickers who are caught face a prison sentence of up to 15 years. Users – regardless of the drug – serve a year sentence.
Enass Kareem, a small dark-haired woman, flips through her phone and reads messages from an Iraqi Facebook page about drugs.
‘I beg you; i want to be treated. I am fifteen years old from Basra, please treat me like your brother. ‘
About a year ago, Enass, a high school biology teacher, noticed that some of her students were taking advantage of.
“They skipped classes and when they attended they weren’t focused,” she explains. “I realized other signs, such as in their teeth, in their aggressive responses.”
She was reluctant to inform the school administration about the suspected users, fearing they would be deported. Instead, she quietly contacted their parents and brought them into rehab.
“I started a Facebook page to raise awareness about drugs and the possibilities for addicts.” She explains.
People started sending her messages asking for help for themselves, for their loved ones, for their friends.
“My interactions with users made me realize that one of the biggest reasons is inactivity. Most users are out of work. Even those with college degrees can’t get work,” she says.
She likens drugs to a form of terrorism, one that can easily escape criticism if it quietly penetrates homes, schools, and universities.
“It is the destruction of a society through drugs. It is destroying people psychologically, crime is increasing, families are being torn apart,” she says. “The impact of this will be serious in the future.”
She works closely with the anti-drug department, which also wants addicts to recover rather than end up behind bars.
The rehabilitation block at the Ibn Rushd Mental Health Center in Baghdad is full; doctors and nurses must cycle patients away faster than they would like.
Abdulkarim’s eyes are shiny, his teeth and jaw hurt, he says; his brain feels like it could explode. He sits on one of the rickety beds and rocks back and forth slightly.
“I’ll get through this,” he promises the nurse who comes to see him. He’s only been here three days; the cravings for crystal meth running through his body seem overwhelming.
Abdulkarim was a day laborer. He would hang out in the street with the other unemployed, angry and dejected.
‘They helped me with this. To forget, to escape, ‘he recalls. “Unemployment drove us into this. And the situation in Iraq, the miserable situation.”
The country is at war, anti-drug officials say, a war they fear losing.
“The era of traditional warfare with two armies facing each other is over,” said General Hussein. “The enemies of this country will do everything they can to prevent us from developing and that is a form of warfare. They want to destroy the very core of our society, our youth.”
Aqeel Najm contributed to this report from Baghdad.