VERDIJ, Iran (AP) – Iran is breaking bad.
Officials say methamphetamine production and abuse of hard drugs are skyrocketing in the country despite potentially lethal criminal penalties for users if they are caught. The increase is partly because of Iran’s status as the gateway for the region’s top drug exporter, Afghanistan – and partly because Iranian dealers are profiting so handsomely from sales to overstressed students and exhausted double-jobbers.
Ghazal Tolouian, a psychologist who treats dozens of meth addicts at a therapy camp in a mountain village northwest of Tehran, says most of her clients fall into two categories: students “who want to pass university entrance exams successfully,” and “people who have to work a second and third shift to make ends meet and earn more money.”
Anti-narcotics and medical officials say more than 2.2 million of Iran’s 80 million citizens already are addicted to illegal drugs, including 1.3 million on registered treatment programs. They say the numbers keep rising annually, even though use of the death penalty against convicted smugglers has increased, too, and now accounts for more than nine of every 10 executions.
Parviz Afshar, an anti-narcotics official, said for every lab they detect, two more might spring up, often involving small-scale “cooks” operating in residences where meth production is particularly hard to detect. He said police found and destroyed at least 416 meth labs in the 12-month period up to March, up from 350 in the previous 12-month period.