The Algerian Minister of the Interior announced the seizure of nearly 8 tons of cannabis in 2022 and during the 1st quarter of 2023.
Algerian Interior Minister Brahim Merad said on Thursday in Algiers that “Algeria is being targeted through drugs and is facing a war waged by its western neighbour”.
Speaking during a plenary session at the People’s National Assembly (APN) devoted to oral questions, he insisted, in this sense, on the need “to face this war with all the means, through the association of all sectors and specialized bodies as well as civil society”.
According to Brahim Merad, the efforts of the Algerian National Security services “have resulted in the elucidation of 32,742 cases during the first quarter of the current year involving 37,352 individuals”.
“These cases resulted in the seizure of 2.5 tons of cannabis and 17 kg of cocaine and nearly one (1) kg of heroin as well as 3.5 million psychotropic tablets,” he said. .
The same services, he added, solved in 2022 a total of 85,538 cases relating to drug-related crimes involving 97,863 individuals, the majority of them young people, resulting in the seizure of 5 tons of cannabis, 22 kg of cocaine, 8.5 kg of heroin and more than 7 million different psychotropic tablets.
For the Minister, this “heavy and growing” balance sheet attests to the efforts made by the National Security in coordination with the Interior services and the various security bodies in the fight against the various forms of drug-related crime.
“It is also intended as proof of the availability and vigilance of state institutions in the fight against this scourge”.
With regard to the measures taken in this context, the Minister affirmed that his services, in coordination with the various sectors concerned, “have drawn up a comprehensive and balanced national strategy, essentially aimed at stemming the flow of narcotics, while working to reduce demand with the guarantee of effective support for drug addicts in terms of treatment and social integration, under the supervision of a working group specializing in the prevention of this phenomenon, the results of which have been examined at of the APN”.
He specified, in the process, that the various security services are working on “the development and implementation of action plans by involving their operational units in the fight against drug and psychotropic trafficking and by adopting a preventive policy based on awareness of the risks of this phenomenon”.
In the same context, he recalled “the implementation of a national prevention strategy against neighborhood gangs, spanning between 2023 and 2026 under the supervision of a national commission which constitutes an essential element in the fight” .
“It aims to adopt mechanisms for vigilance and alert and early detection, information, awareness and the guarantee of security coverage”.
Invited on Thursday morning by channel 3 of Algerian public radio, the president of the national foundation for the promotion of health (Forem), Mustapha Khiati also warned of the seriousness of the situation linked to the spread of drugs and psychotropics in the country.
According to him, the recent amendment to the 2004 law on the fight against drug trafficking “provided a remedy for the insufficiency of Algerian legislation which suffered from the absence of coercive measures against dealers”.
“It’s a positive thing that promises to change something in the future, knowing that we have gone from 10,000 cases in the early 2000s to more than 100,000 cases,” he said, stressing that ” the security of the country is threatened by these traffickers”.
The 2004 law did not distinguish, he said, between types of drugs.
“With the toughening of sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years and up to life imprisonment, the State is now showing that it no longer wants to negotiate with these traffickers”, he underlined.
