NCRI – The head of the Anti-Drug committee, affiliated to the secretariat of the Expediency Discernment Council, Ali Hashemi stated that according to the statistics, the number of addicted people is more than 2 million and 500 thousand and by adding the number of “fancy drug users” the population reaches to 4 million.
The head of the Anti-drug committee also added that there are currently 13 million workers in the country in which 21 percent of those are suffering from drug addiction. Therefore, there are only 3 million addicted workers in the country .By counting the number of the so-called “fancy drug-users” or the non-workers addicts; the population is far more than of the estimated official figures that indicates 1 million and 500 thousands.
Ali Hashemi considered unemployment as one of the key factors in the prevalence of addiction in Iran. He also said that the unemployment in some cities reaches to 80 percent as well.
After the Iran and Iraq war, Ayatollah Khomeini stressed on the reconstruction of damages and curbing the addiction was his second major priority in that time. The current supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, in a meeting with the heads of the regime, also confessed about social problems, especially addiction and pointed out that “these issues have been discussed with twenty years of delay.”
Ali Hashemi also said that he was the deputy of Iran Drug Control Headquarters in time of Mohammad Khatami’s office. At the end of this presidency, the number of addicted people was 10 thousand. On the contrary, the 10th government gave the office to Rouhani with 335 thousand numbers of addicted people. There is no planning to occupy the leisure time of people, especially for youths and the teenagers so the addiction permeates. The minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance admitted that the 70 percent of Iran’s population watch satellite channels and they are all considered as criminals according to the law.
