Former Official: Addiction Growth Rate Three Times Higher Than Population Growth Over Past Three Decades

The former secretary of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters says that “based on population growth rate over the past three decades, the minimum addiction growth rate has been three times the population growth rate”.

Ali Hashemi said on Sunday, June 23rd, to ILNA news agency that the latest addiction growth rate was related to 2015 and was 5.5 percent.

He further stated, referring to the fact that “no new statistics have been seen in the past six years,” that the 2015 statistics were also based on self-reported data from individuals aged 15 to 65 years.

Nasser Aslani, deputy head of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters, had stated in September of last year that there are 2 million and 800 thousand registered addicts in the country, and it is estimated that 1 million and 400 thousand unidentified addicts may exist.

According to statistics from the Cadres Institute, a research and studies organization in Tehran in June 2020, the annual addiction growth rate in Iran was estimated at around eight percent, and it is predicted that women’s tendency toward drug abuse will increase in the coming years.

According to the former secretary of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters, in the past four decades, nearly 18 million people have been arrested, counting repeated offenders, and nearly 68 percent of these arrests are related to direct and indirect drug crimes.

The Forensic Medicine Organization had previously reported that death resulting from drug abuse, stimulants, narcotics, and polysubstance use in 2019 increased by 21.8 percent compared to the same period in the previous year.

Source: Radio Farda