Failed Policies in the Fight Against Addiction

On Sunday, the "Healthy Teen" festival concluded, with Ali Asghar Fani, the Minister of Education, identifying addiction as one of the significant threats and dangers to youth in his closing message. The International Congress on Addiction Knowledge was also held on Wednesday in Tehran, featuring international experts in the fight against addiction. Concurrently, Parviz Afshar, the Deputy for Demand Reduction at the Drug Control Headquarters, stated that addiction is among the top five causes of mortality in Iran. Radio Farda sought the views of Hossein Ghazian, a sociologist in the United States, on this matter. Ghazian noted that there is a significant difference between addiction and other causes of death. Factors such as cardiovascular diseases or accidents, which are the first and second leading causes of death in Iran, are often sudden and their onset and conclusion are straightforward, with limited long-term impact. However, addiction truly kills many before death and disrupts lives, particularly in family settings and for those closely associated with the addict, including spouses, children, siblings, and even parents. Therefore, addiction has a more profound and lasting impact on relatives and those connected to the issue compared to other causes of death, with perhaps only cancer being comparable in this regard. Ghazian further mentioned that Afshar has indicated that having one addict in a family means that all family members will be considered second-class citizens in society. Ghazian elaborated that while individuality has grown in Iranian society, the elements related to individuality, such as personal responsibility and evaluation based on one's own actions rather than family ties, have not developed sufficiently. In traditional views where individuality is underdeveloped, individuals are judged and penalized based on their network affiliations, including family. Thus, the social or moral punishment of an addict extends beyond the individual to their family, meaning that not only is the individual condemned, but their immediate family also suffers from this moral and social evaluation. Ghazian pointed out that officials have stated in the sixth development plan that they intend to reduce addiction by 25%. Given that combating addiction is a long-term endeavor, he was asked how the government could implement the best measures in this regard. Ghazian responded that there has been a significant error in targeting and strategy in prevention and demand reduction, similar to the situation faced in the fight against illiteracy. He recalled that the head of the anti-illiteracy campaign once stated that combating illiteracy is akin to removing a glass of water from a pool of illiteracy while education is pouring more water into it. The budget and effort spent on educating older individuals have resulted in many being unable to receive education, leading to a continuous influx of new illiterates. The same has occurred with addiction; all efforts to reduce demand have focused on helping existing addicts quit, neglecting the fact that many new potential users are entering the scene. This has resulted in a misdirected strategy and inappropriate planning, with demand reduction efforts aimed at current market users rather than future potential customers who may not be users now but could become so later, thus heating up the demand market. This has led to a situation where the type of education, attention, support, and planning that should have been implemented has instead resulted in ineffective demand prevention over the years.