Drugs are cheap because Iran is next door to Afghanistan, one of the world's leading producers of opium, from which heroin is derived. The pervasiveness and cheapness of drugs have provoked a dramatic increase in drug addiction, leaving Iranian authorities to face a problem that affects all layers of society. There are two million drug addicts in a population of 60 million, and 75 percent of the prison population is in jail for drug abuse or trafficking. Iran is facing an unprecedented social crisis, with many Iranian sociologists saying widespread drug addiction has become a very common social phenomenon. Not a day goes by without a drug-related story making the television news headlines.
Addiction is now blatant on people's faces, especially in the lower working class.
In an interview published Saturday in the reformist newspaper Karo-Kargar, Meshkini explains that social difficulties at school and in the family circle are turning more and more youths into junkies. According to some sociologists, Iran's prohibition on alcohol has driven youths towards drugs. Opium, the most popular drug in Iran, is radically cheaper than a bottle of foreign spirits. Authorities in Tehran are leading a campaign against drug traffickers, to try to reverse a situation that is devastating the entire Iranian society. In the past few weeks, fighting intensified between the Iranian army and drug traffickers in Iran's two eastern provinces, which border Afghanistan and Pakistan.