In an announcement, presumably timed to coincide with International Drugs Day, the Iranian Secretary General, Fada Hossein Maleki, has announced that the illicit drug confiscations by Iranian authorities for the year had amounted to 360 tons.
The fact that this amount is more than the annual production of Myanmar (according to UN figures) puts the scale of the achievement into perspective as well as the vast problems that Iran is facing.
The quantity of drugs passing through Iran from neighbouring Afghanistan is quite staggering. Iran is the key route for Afghan opium and heroin on its way to the lucrative markets of western Europe and the Gulf states.
Despite this, Iran received the paltry sum of $10 million dollars in UN aid last year for its war on drugs.
And this is why Iran is going to start playing hard ball.
In a thinly veiled threat, the Iranian Secretary General said that if the UN fails to provide adequate funding (they have asked for $500 million) for their anti-drug efforts then they will have serious problems in curbing the drug flow through their country.
The cynic in me says that this is code for hand over the cash or prepare for a flood of drugs into Europe.