The question is, is this statistic real?
Farzaneh Sohrabi said: “The growth of addiction in the country is three times the population growth. The growth of addiction in the country has been about eight percent annually, while the population of the country in the most optimistic state has grown by about 2 percent; As a result, the number of addicts seems to be growing by more than 3% annually.”
About the population growth in Iran the state-run news agency MEHR in May 2020, quoting the “Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution,” wrote: “The population growth rate of Iran in 2019 is below 1 percent.”
It means that Iran had 1.196 million newborns in 2019, which is 170,000 less than in 2018. In 2017, the number of newborns was 1.366 million.
Sohrabi added that “the statistics show us that between 5 to 7 million people in the country, had on at least one occasion experienced addiction.”
But Iran’s government tries to engineer the statistics to cover up the reality. Ali Hashemi, Chairman of the Independent Anti-Narcotics Committee of the Expediency Council, has announced the number of addicts prior to 2006 as 3.760 million people and said: “But suddenly the statistics of the government shrunk to 750,000 to 800,000 people in a population of 70 million. The last statistics that were announced about the number of addicts was in 2011 which was 1.330 million addicts in a population of 75 million people.”
Hashemi then added: “In the eight years of the presidency of Ahmadinejad, this number gradually reached 1.350 million people. While with this engineering of the statistics they accept that in the ninth and tenth government, addiction has increased about 100 percent. According to the prevalence of addiction, which was done by the headquarters itself, in 2011 the number of four million addicts in the country is true, but the then head of the government did not allow the publishing of the results.”
From 2011 to 2017 the government announced the statistics of the addicts to be 1.330 million during that time. After six years, Parviz Afshar, the former spokesman of the Anti-Drug Headquarters, on 24 June 2017, announced that the country has 2.808 million addicts.
From that date, this number of the addicts were all the time the official number of the government. Before the presidential election in April 2017, a new number should have been announced, but in fear of the reaction of the people, the regime withheld the announcement. Then on 6 November 2019, the same number “2.808 million” was announced by the Deputy Chief of Intelligence and Operations of the NAJA Anti-Narcotics Police, Majid Karimi.
Mohsen Roshanpejouh, “Deputy of the Welfare Organization’s Prevention and Treatment Center”, regarding the number of addicts in the country previously said: “The announced number by the Anti-Drug Headquarters is the number of the continuous consumers of drugs, and recreational consumption is not considered.”
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Naser Aslani, the “Deputy for Counter-Supply and International Affairs of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters”, while referring to the new number of the 4.5 million addicts on 17 October 2019 said: “There are 2.808 million continuous addicts and 1.600 million recreational drug users in the country.”
This number did not consider the number of addicts under the age of 15. While according to the regime’s state media the addiction age has reached the age of between 11 and 15.
FARS news agency quoted Rasul Khezri, Member of the Social Commission of Parliament, on 8 May 2019 and said: “The statistics about the addiction are absolutely not reliable. In fact, they are alone one-fifth of the real number.”
On 9 July 2018, the Hamdeli daily reported that “the number of addicts in the country should be considered as 10 million people.”
The head of the “Anti-Narcotics Headquarters” is the President himself. The Secretary-General of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters has been elected by the Minister of Interior. Looking at the organization’s organizational chart, it may be possible to speculate on the reason for the unrealistic statistics on the number of addicts in the country in the past and the transfer of statistics to the CUDRAS Institute at present.
On 20 March 2020, Rasul Khezri said Iran has the first place in the consumption of drugs in the world.
Mohamad Tarahomi, Director General of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Office of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters, on 12 August 2019 said: “167 trillion Tomans is the turnover of the drugs, while the country’s budget has been announced at 408 trillion Tomans.”
