In IR & Hejab entry, I summarized several social & economic problems which exist in today’s Iran under the ruling Islamic Republic Mullah regime.
One notable problem is that of Opium & Drug addiction & trafficking. According to IR government estimates there are at least four million people using drugs in a nation of approximately 70 million. Of those, 200,000 are intravenous drug users and at least 50,000 are infected with HIV.
History:
Although I could dedicate an entire post to the history of this subject in Iran, I will only give you a snapshot here. Opium has been part of the Iranian landscape since Sasanian times and a popular drug, post-Islam, since at least, the Safavid period (1502 -1736 - who ironically were religious rulers). Although, people typically took a daily dose that was too small to render them incapable of going about their daily lives - Iran during Savafid Dynasty, 17th century, provided Iranians with “damagh”, gave them a “kick,” got them into a good mood. Opium (similar to today’s morphine) was also used for medicinal purposes. However, The story under the current ruling Mullahs is quite different.
The Current Situation: TEHRAN – If he could afford it, Ali Nariman would drink beer, he says. But like most Iranians, he is poor, and so takes his solace in the form of a small gray ball of opium. Nariman is 18. And like hundreds of thousands of Iranians turning to harder narcotics at younger ages, he regards drugs as the only alternative to work.
“We should have jobs,” Nariman said, standing in the vast cemetery on the southern edge of Tehran. In a routine played out every Thursday, the day families traditionally visit the cemetery devoted mostly to war dead, young addicts sweep in afterward to scavenge the cookies and dates left on the graves. “I sometimes find work,” Nariman said, “collecting stale bread in town.
But if the utility of narcotics has roots in Iran’s ancient culture, and the discount prices (about $5 for a gram of heroin, 50 percent pure) stem from proximity to the poppy fields of neighboring Afghanistan, experts, addicts and government officials agree that addiction has lately emerged as a corrosive new symptom of the country’s economic failure, a marker for despair.
“You haven’t got a job. You haven’t got a family. You haven’t got entertainment,” said Amir Mohammadi, who at 30 has been an addict for 10 years. “For a few hours, you forget everything.”
Heroin, a powerful derivative of opium, is taking hold among young people whose path to addiction typically stems from disappointment in the job market. A government poll shows almost 80 percent of Iranians detect a direct link between unemployment and drug addiction. Iran’s government regularly fails to produce the 1 million jobs needed each year to accommodate the new workers entering the labor force from a baby boom still coming of age.
Yet despite such bloodstained evidence, drugs remain so prevalent that many Iranians describe their availability as evidence of a government plot. After students rioted at Tehran University in 1999, residents of a locked-down dormitory told of drug dealers being allowed in to distribute narcotics for free.
“I believe this is the policy of the state, to make all the youth addicted,” said Hamid Motalebi, 22, a police officer on duty in a south Tehran park almost overrun by junkies sleeping on the grass or staggering like zombies. “It’s the lack of policy and management. If they could create enough jobs, enough entertainment, why would people turn to drugs?”
The toll on Iranian society is staggering. Mokri estimates that 20 percent of Iran’s adult population is “somehow involved in drug abuse.” The estimate includes half a million dealers, each selling to three or four people, at a total cost of $3 billion to $5 billion annually. The problem has reached proportions that could be approached only in terms of management, he said.
“Opium, we just don’t feel it. It’s for old people,” said Fariboorz Koocheki, 29, in the junkie park. “For us, it’s heroin. And for those younger than us, it’s crack and glass,” slang for methamphetamine, the most common of the synthetic drugs growing more popular in Iran.
Opium is used mainly as a painkiller or medicine,” Koocheki said. “But heroin helps you to run away from the truth, from the facts. Youth wants something that helps us run away from the reality of everyday life, and that’s heroin.”
“People here can’t have a drink in the pub. The young people can’t go to a music club,” said Bijan Nasirimanesh, director of Persepolis, a drop-in center for drug addicts. “You have the paradox in this country of, coming at you from inside, everything is totally religious, and from outside, MTV and Western culture.”
Bahman Akbarizadeh, 25, wore a gray shirt and an intense look. “I think if people had hope and entertainment in their life, they would never go to heroin, because they know the risks.” A handful of women traded stories of habits that grew out of forced marriages and addicted spouses. A former weightlifter said a hit of heroin cost him less than a sandwich. There was talk of a new synthetic drug known as “Tear of God.”
In the vast Martyrs Cemetery, which lies at the southern edge of Tehran, Nariman cursed the 1979 revolution that most of those laid to rest in the cemetery died defending during the eight-year war with Iraq. “It was a rubbish thing to do,” he said. He pointed to Nader Roosh, a homeless boy of 15 who sleeps at night in the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revered cleric who championed a rebellion grounded in social justice. Nariman said he saw no evidence of such change.
“The boys in the north, they can drink alcohol. They have enough money,” he said. “But in the south, we only have money for drugs.”
Heroin flows over the borders into Iran from Afghanistan and is all too easily available. According to the 2005 UN World Drug Report, Iran has the highest opiate drug addiction rate in the world. Estimate range between 3 million and 5 million drug addicts in the nation and the suffering this causes is immense.
A Personal Encounter:
Sagg e Zard in his post Narcoislam writes (an excerpt): “I was sitting on a domestic flight from Tehran when a man sat next to me, a middle aged grizzly Basiji Haj Agha, bearded, scruffy type wearing the usual uniform of the Islamic Republic’s armed thuggery.
I opened the conversation by asking him if he was going to visit family and he said he was going to visit his factory and will be back in Tehran next day. I asked about his factory and eventually led to him mentioning that he was a Sardar (General) of the Pasdaran (Guards) and dealt with narcotics smuggling, now I do not know if he was saying the truth for a fact, but he was wearing uniform and by his looks I could imagine he had no problem killing a few infidels for the day. I started talking about the misery of addiction I see everyday on streets and how many friends and relatives I know who are suffering from addiction and that families are being torn and destroyed by drugs.
He told me everyday the problem is getting worse and started laying the blame on the wealthier parts of the population that started making Cocaine fashionable and now there is a huge Crack problem across Iran, and then there is Methamphetamine known as (Shisheh = Glass) beginning to make an impact and of course heroin and opium is nothing new.
I asked him what is being done to stop the flow of drugs and fix the problem, he said nothing can be done. He explained that it happens every week that they confiscate a trailer truck filled with heroin and opium in the east of the country, typically in Zahedan where they impound the vehicle and imprison the driver and then the following week they confiscate the same trailer with the same cargo on the western border of Iran, typically Bazargan border crossing to turkey. He was very comfortable to say that the government is accommodating the drug trade and he blamed the huge demand in Western Europe for the problem in Iran, he said the reason drugs are so cheap in Iran is that the drug traffickers are financing the transportation of the drugs to Europe, by selling parts of the shipments cheap in order to give a cut to officials or people in powerful positions who can pull strings.
The Haj Agha continued to chat on his phone despite many warning from flight attendants and after we landed I said goodbye to the Haj Agha who seemed to like the conversation with me and asked for my phone number (this made me comically feel uncomfortable in many ways), of course I gave him a number where he could not reach me and when we got off the plane there were couple of other Haj Aghas waiting for him at the foot of the plane and he disapeared into the crowd.
There are independent reports of more than twenty million addicts in Iran, HIV infection is spreading like a wild fire. I think it is about time an investigation is done of the Iranian clerical establishment and its involvement in the narcotics trafficking. It has been said that the ubiquitous Rafsanjani family and also Ayatollah Vaez-Tabasi or otherwise known as the King of Khorasan are deeply involved in the drug trade, which not only includes trafficking and production in Iran, it also may very likely include production in parts of Afghanistan. Members of these drug cartels must be prosecuted and punished for crimes against humanity.”
This was so painful to read. What a tragedy.
HOW COULD WE RESQUE OUR SISTERS FROM THIS KILLER?
I think the locus of the problem is the mullahs and the regime.