Tenfold Increase in Street Addicts in Iran Over Eight Years

A member of the Expediency Discernment Council in Iran criticized the "indifference" of the 9th Parliament and the previous government regarding the issue of addiction, reporting a tenfold increase in street addicts in Iran over the past eight years. Saeed Safatian, head of the Drug Demand Reduction Working Group of the Expediency Discernment Council, stated in an interview with ILNA news agency on Tuesday, March 3, that the 9th Parliament was inactive in the area of addiction prevention. Mr. Safatian announced that "the 9th Parliament did not pay special attention to addiction and did not take specific actions in the area of social harms," saying, "The number of street addicts has increased tenfold over the past eight years, while some believe the number of addicts has remained stable, but we do not observe this in society." This addiction prevention official in Iran further noted the amendment of the Anti-Narcotics Law in 2010, stating: "Article 45 of the Anti-Narcotics Law allows Parliament to amend certain provisions of this law." According to Mr. Safatian, "the 9th Parliament had four years to amend provisions of this law in favor of society in the areas of prevention and treatment of addiction, but unfortunately did not address this issue." The member of the Expediency Discernment Council emphasized the change in the pattern of drug and psychotropic substance consumption, stating: "In Section Six of the macro policies of the system, which was drafted in 2007, we approved that planning should be done so that addicts do not move from low-risk substances to high-risk ones, but in practice, the opposite has occurred, as if all the costs incurred have led addicts towards high-risk substances." Mr. Safatian had previously reported that 300,000 people are addicted to crystal meth. He stated in mid-February in an interview with ILNA that during the first nine months of the current year, 2,274 addicts in Iran died due to complications from addiction. In this regard, Shahindokht Molaverdi, the Iranian Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, announced that "the pattern of drug consumption among girls, unlike boys who mostly use traditional substances, has shifted towards industrial and psychotropic substances, which is a cause for concern." Earlier in June of this year, Najib Hosseini, Deputy of the Drug Control Headquarters, stated that addiction among women, which was previously five percent, has now reached ten percent. This official added that for the first time, a women's committee has been formed within the Drug Control Headquarters to prevent this issue. On November 1 of this year, Parviz Afshar, spokesman for the Drug Control Headquarters, reported that the mortality rate among addicted women in 2014 had increased by 33 percent compared to the previous year. He stated that some women "after using crystal meth turn to tramadol and other psychotropic substances, and poly-drug use leads to overdose and ultimately their death." Additionally, in another statistic, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Iran's Minister of Interior, announced in September of this year that 1.5 to 2 percent of the Iranian population is addicted to drugs.