Ali Moayedi, chief of police for the country’s narcotics department stated that the number of drug addicts in the country is 3 million. This is while the true number is 6 million. However, despite the issue of Ali Moayedi’s statistics, he states in an interview with the regime’s TV, while stressing on the continuation of the current method of arresting and increasing executions: “Our establishment has had great gains and actually one of our masterworks is in fighting with narcotics and our successes are mentioned by all countries and everyone admits that our country has had success in dealing with drug smugglers”.

He made no mention of the social reason behind this dilemma and the role of the regime’s leaders in this regard.

In this regard Hamid Reza Jalalipour, a sociology professor at Tehran University, stated that the number of drug addicts in Iran is more than the country of Pakistan.

In the program “reviewing the methods of fighting narcotics” he criticized the regime officials for not paying attention to the roots of this social dilemma.

He recognized the rise in unemployment and poverty rates as two social elements that set the stage for drug addiction. Islamic republic officials refrain from publishing detailed statistics of the country’s unemployment rates.

Despite all this, 40% inflation in recent months in Iran has led to more people falling into poverty. 

On the other hand, coinciding with all this while the prices of basic daily goods have increased the prices of some narcotics, such as Psychotropic pills(narcotic) and industrial agents have actually decreased and they are easily found on the street.

Rasoul Khazari, a member of the Iranian regime’s Parliament Hygiene and Treatment Commission, in an interview in March 2013 with the state-run Mehr news agency confirmed the decrease in the price of various narcotics. He also reported the number of women addicts has doubled and the age of drug addicts has decreased across the country.

This is while the profit of smuggling and distributing narcotics in Iran has reached at least $3 bin annually, and this amount of profit is impossible without the cooperation of the government and Revolutionary Guards.

In these circumstances, Mohammad-javad Larijani, Secretary of Human Rights Headquarters, spoke in the supreme coordination meeting of the Human Rights Headquarters and said: “Regrettably, the international bodies, instead of praising Iran for increasing the number of executions in its firm policy against narcotics, have used this matter as a pretext to attack the Islamic Republic of Iran on the human rights issue.” Tasnim news agency for the Quds Force  March 2014