Afghan Opium, Iranian Drug Addicts, and a Worldwide Epidemic

Though a bit dated, this Washington Post article provides an interesting summary of Iran’s problem with opiates. About 60% of Afghan opium travels through Iran on its way to other foreign markets and, according to this Guardian article, there has been a fivefold increase between 2003 and 2008 in the amount of opium passing through Iran . But before the opium leaves the country, much of it is consumed as heroin and other opiates by the country’s huge population of drug addicts (200,000 known addicts; 2-4 million estimated users).

Although opium is not new to Iran – the elderly have traditionally used it for medicinal purposes – the use of opium derivatives among the young has really skyrocketed in the past decade. The reasons for this are several. First, when the Taliban forbid the production of opium in 2000-2001, this caused the price of opium to increase dramatically, and many stopped smoking and swallowing the drug and started injecting the comparatively cheaper heroin form. (It’s worth noting that at least in 2005 a hit of heroin was cheaper than beer or a sandwich.) Second, there is a “baby boom” generation that is now coming of age and there are nowhere near enough jobs available for them. Unemployment-related depression is a huge impetus to begin drug use and, according to the article, it is only exacerbated by the conservative lifestyle that has been forced upon this young generation. Without a vibrant club, music, and bar scene, there is very little entertainment to fill people’s free time and so they turn to the thrill of a drug high.

It seems that the government did not concern itself too much with this high rate of heroin consumption until HIV/AIDS began spreading through the drug-using community (about 2/3 of Iranians known to be living with AIDS were infected by contaminated drug paraphernalia). The government now offers subsidized needles and free methadone to drug addicts in an effort to combat the spread of the disease.

Unfortunately, it seems that Iran has been much more reluctant to deal with the sexual transmission of AIDS. Condom use is not encouraged, which is really a public health hazard when 70% of 15-20 year olds in Tehran are engaging in pre-marital sex. And as others have noted there is a huge problem with prostitution in Iran and that, combined with a large number of IDUs, makes for the perfect storm. No doubt drug users solicit the services of sex workers and perhaps some of these young women have taken up prostitution as a way to fund their drug habit or have been driven to drugs by their inability to find a job outside of prostitution. I think that if the government really wants to avoid the kind of exponential explosion in AIDS cases that countries like Russia have seen, they need to stop the prudery and start educating people about safer sex practices. Whether that will happen in a country as nominally conservative and religious as Iran, I don’t know. But the fact that drug use is no longer criminalized in the same way that it once was (after the Revolution, hundreds of thousands of drug users were thrown in jail) gives me some hope that the government will take a more pragmatic attitude toward sex education in the future. After all, what kind of moral reputation will Iran have if it falls victim to AIDS? And how can Iran hope to maintain its military might if the younger generation is weakened not only by drug use but by AIDS?