538% spike in drug seizures across UAE

Don’t give pardon to drug addicts, Dahi Khalfan urges authorities

The war on drugs had an unprecedented success in 2017 during which anti-narcotic police officers in the UAE seized six times the quantity of drugs seized in 2016, said a top cop yesterday.

Speaking at a law-enforcement event in Dubai to mark International Anti-Narcotics Day, Lt-General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, deputy chairman of Police and Public Security in Dubai, urged parents to become a major defensive line in combating drugs by looking after their teenage children.

“Parents in the Arab world have a big distance from their children. Parents should know with whom their teenage children go around and where they spend their time. We are in an ongoing war with drug dealers as they target our youth,” LtGen Khalfan Tamim said.

As much as 62 tonnes of narcotic substances were seized in the UAE last year, an increase of 538 per cent over 2016 when officers seized nearly 10 tonnes of drugs.

The Interior Ministry statistics revealed that 6,440 drug suspects were arrested last year compared to 5,130 in 2016.

“Every year, a select number of inmates in jails are given pardon during religious occasions. We shouldn’t pardon any drug dealer or addict before they finish their jail time. I urge the authorities to not include a drug addict on the list of inmates to be pardoned for the second time. If we have pardoned a person once, then he shouldn’t be pardoned the second time,” he said.

Brigadier Saeed Abdullah Bin Tuwair Al Suwaidi, director-general of the Federal Anti-Narcotics General Directorate, said the ministry will launch a new reward programme titled ‘UAE Prize in Combating Drugs’, the first of its kind in the region.

The prize will have 10 categories including best practices, enhancing partnerships, fighting drugs, customs, precautionary measures, schools and universities that present projects, suggestions for combating drugs, and media.