153 Deaths Last Year Due to Drinking Fake Alcohol

An official from Iran's forensic medicine organization reported that 153 people died last year due to drinking counterfeit alcoholic beverages and announced that the age of alcohol consumption in Iran has reached 18 years. According to ISNA news agency, Mohammad Reza Ghadirzadeh, secretary of the drug research working group of the forensic medicine organization, said on Thursday, October 20, that alcohol consumption in Iran has 'taken a creeping upward trend.' He stated that an increase in alcohol consumption has been reported among those aged 18. This official did not provide further details about what he described as the increase in alcohol consumption in Iran. Ghadirzadeh had previously stated that 'the total financial turnover and trade of alcoholic beverages in the country is 658 billion tomans and there are 23 alcohol production factories in the country.' There are no accurate statistics on the exact amount of alcohol consumption in Iran, and various officials have repeatedly announced different figures in this regard. For instance, Ali Akbar Siari, the deputy health minister, reported an annual consumption of 420 million liters of alcohol in the country, while some reports suggest an annual consumption of about 60 million liters of alcoholic beverages in Iran. In this context, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the Tehran prosecutor, announced last year that nearly 300,000 bottles of foreign alcohol and about 200,000 liters of domestically produced alcohol were discovered in Tehran within ten months. Qasem Khorshidi, spokesman for the anti-smuggling headquarters, also stated last year that over the course of a year, 1,427,000 cans or bottles of alcoholic beverages were discovered. The consumption of non-standard and smuggled alcoholic beverages has repeatedly led to deaths or loss of eyesight for many consumers in various cities in Iran. Meanwhile, Ghadirzadeh reported that last year, 153 people died from poisoning caused by drinking counterfeit alcoholic beverages, and their cases were referred to forensic medicine. According to this official, 'the production of these illegal beverages is done underground in the country.' Ghadirzadeh had also mentioned last year at a conference on 'alcohol abuse and addiction' that based on the cases sent to this organization, from 2010 to 2014, annually, 145 tons, 93 tons, 136 tons, 135 tons, and 81 tons of alcohol consumption led to deaths. Additionally, according to Yasna Bahmanesh, secretary of the central drug and poison information center, out of 100,000 visits to specialized poisoning treatment hospitals, 2 to 4 percent of the poisonings were related to alcohol. She stated on September 6 in an interview with ISNA that in some smaller cities, the statistics for alcohol poisoning are much higher than this percentage. On Tuesday, July 24, the consumption of 'homemade alcohol' in Sirjan County in Kerman Province resulted in the death of at least 5 people and sent 114 others to the hospital. A week later, at least five people in the cities of Shiraz, Fasa, and Tabas died due to drinking counterfeit alcoholic beverages containing methanol, and one person lost their eyesight. The punishment for consuming alcoholic beverages in Iran is 80 lashes, and after two executions of this punishment, repeated consumption can lead to execution. In this context, the death of 'at least five people' due to counterfeit alcoholic beverages in Iran, 5 dead and 114 poisoned after consuming 'homemade alcohol' in Sirjan, consumption of 'homemade alcohol' in Sirjan sent dozens to the hospital, the closure of six alcohol production workshops and the arrest of 10 people in Kerman, and the annual consumption of '60 million liters of alcoholic beverages' in Iran.