← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Petr
Thread ID: 20494 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2005-10-03
2005-10-03 14:28 | User Profile
[I]This ain't mere neocon propaganda - anti-Islamic Iranian nationalists are genuinely hopping mad at mullahs because of the way they run the country.
(But like many White Russian emigrants who supported Stalin against Hitler, they would still probably ready to ally with them should America invade their fatherland...)[/I]
[url]http://www.marzeporgohar.org/index.php?action=news&n_id=25407&l=1[/url]
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=5]Despair driving Iranians to opium[/SIZE]
[B]Source: Boston Globe Date 02-10-2005
By Karl Vick, Washington Post [/B]
TEHRAN -- If he could afford it, Ali Nariman would drink beer, he says. But like most Iranians, he is poor, and so takes his solace in the form of a small gray ball of opium.
Swallowed whole for maximum absorption, the ball takes only half an hour to deliver the warm, surging relief that inhabitants of the Persian plateau have long associated with advanced age. For centuries in Iran, opium was regarded as a privilege of the elderly, a largely medicinal comfort for the pains and worries accumulated over a lifetime of work.
Nariman is 18. And like hundreds of thousands of Iranians turning to harder narcotics at younger ages, he regards drugs as the only alternative to work.
''We should have jobs," Nariman said, standing in the vast cemetery on the southern edge of Tehran. In a routine played out every Thursday, the day families traditionally visit the cemetery devoted mostly to war dead, young addicts sweep in afterward to scavenge the cookies and dates left on the graves. ''I sometimes find work," Nariman said, ''collecting stale bread in town."
[B]According to the UN World Drug Report for 2005, Iran has the highest proportion of opiate addicts in the world -- 2.8 percent of the population older than 15. Only two other countries -- Mauritius and Kyrgyzstan -- pass the 2 percent mark. With a population of 70 million and some government agencies putting the number of regular users at nearly 4 million, Iran has no real competition as world leader in per capita addiction to opiates, including heroin.[/B]
When an earthquake leveled the city of Bam in 2003, among the emergency supplies rushed to the scene were doses of methadone, a synthetic drug used to treat heroin and morphine addicts, for the 20 percent or more of the population thought to be addicted. So many Iranians rely on opiates that an influential government analyst suggests that the state itself should consider cultivating poppies.
''Yes -- a strategic reserve of narcotics," said Azarakhsh Mokri, director of the Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies.
But if the utility of narcotics has roots in Iran's ancient culture, and the discount prices (about $5 for a gram of heroin, 50 percent pure) stem from proximity to the poppy fields of neighboring Afghanistan, specialists, addicts, and government officials agree that addiction has lately emerged as a corrosive new symptom of the country's economic failure, a marker for despair.
''You haven't got a job. You haven't got a family. You haven't got entertainment," said Amir Mohammadi, who at 30 has been an addict for 10 years. ''For a few hours, you forget everything."
Heroin, a powerful derivative of opium, is taking hold among young people whose path to addiction typically stems from disappointment in the job market. A government poll shows almost 80 percent of Iranians detect a direct link between unemployment and drug addiction. Iran's government regularly fails to produce the 1 million jobs needed each year to accommodate the new workers entering the labor force from a baby boom still coming of age.
After Iran's theocratic government came to power in 1979, it displayed zero tolerance for drugs, filling the prisons with addicts. ''We paid a high price for it," said Ali Hashemi, head of the Cabinet-level Drug Control Headquarters.
Having since embraced policies grounded in pragmatism, Tehran has provided surprising freedom in drug treatment, subsidizing needle exchanges and methadone centers. The government also has financed energetic efforts to stanch the flow of opiates on the trafficking routes into the country.
[B]The toll on Iranian society is staggering. Mokri estimates that 20 percent of Iran's adult population is ''somehow involved in drug abuse."[/B] The estimate includes half a million dealers, each selling to three or four people, at a total cost of $3 billion to $5 billion annually.[/FONT]
2005-10-07 05:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr] [font=Arial]According to the UN World Drug Report for 2005, Iran has the highest proportion of opiate addicts in the world -- 2.8 percent of the population older than 15. Only two other countries -- Mauritius and Kyrgyzstan -- pass the 2 percent mark. With a population of 70 million and some government agencies putting the number of regular users at nearly 4 million, Iran has no real competition as world leader in per capita addiction to opiates, including heroin. ==snip==.
The toll on Iranian society is staggering. Mokri estimates that 20 percent of Iran's adult population is ''somehow involved in drug abuse." The estimate includes half a million dealers, each selling to three or four people, at a total cost of $3 billion to $5 billion annually.[/font][/QUOTE] Good. I hope they enjoy all the easy to get opium (Afghanistan is right next door) May they toke more and more of it every day, and may they rot.
AE
2005-10-07 08:04 | User Profile
Many European travellers to Iran in the 19th century - including famous racial inegalitarian Comte de Gobineau - describe how many Iranians all social classes felt urgent need [B][B]to drink themselves totally drunk[/B], [/B] in spite of the Islamic ban on wine - nay, almost in [B]conscious defiance[/B] against Islam that had been imposed on them by Arabs.
Petr