Consumption of "homemade liquor" in Sirjan sent dozens to the hospital
The consumption of "homemade alcohol" in Sirjan city, Kerman province, has led to the deaths of four people and the hospitalization of dozens of others, three of whom are reported to be in critical condition.
According to a report by ILNA News Agency, 92 people have been poisoned in Sirjan County as a result of consuming "homemade" alcoholic beverages, four of whom have lost their lives.
According to this report, these people visited Sirjan medical centers from the evening of Thursday, July 19, to the evening of Sunday, August 1.
In this context, ISNA news agency also reported that 30 of the poisoned people are undergoing dialysis and 48 people have been hospitalized, three of whom are in "serious" condition.
Yadollah Movahed, the Chief Justice of Kerman, has announced that this case will be handled out of turn.
According to Mr. Movahed, according to police investigations, the driver of a truck had purchased two 20-liter containers of "handmade" liquor from Isfahan and distributed it in Sirjan.
Consumption of substandard alcoholic beverages and smuggling of goods in Iran has also led to the death or loss of vision of a number of consumers in Iranian cities.
For example, in 2013, more than 350 people in several different cities in Kerman province, including Rafsanjan, were poisoned after drinking counterfeit alcoholic beverages, and seven people died.
Last year, an official from the Forensic Medicine Organization said at a conference on "Alcohol Abuse and Addiction" that, based on cases sent to the organization, between 2008 and 2014, 145 people, 93 people, 136 people, 135 people, and 81 people died from alcohol consumption, respectively.
Mohammad Reza Ghadirzadeh also said that "the total financial turnover and purchase and sale of alcoholic beverages in the country is 658 billion Tomans and there are 23 alcohol production factories in the country."
There are no precise statistics on the exact amount of alcoholic beverage consumption in Iran, and different statistics have been announced by different officials on several occasions.
Ali Akbar Sayyari, Deputy Minister of Health of the Ministry of Health, reported that 420 million liters of alcohol are consumed annually in the country. However, some reports indicate that about 60 million liters of alcoholic beverages are consumed annually in Iran.
In this context, Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi announced last year that in a period of ten months, nearly 300,000 bottles of foreign liquor and about 200,000 liters of domestically produced liquor had been discovered in Tehran.
Qasem Khorshid, spokesman for the Headquarters for Combating Smuggling of Goods and Currency, also said last year that 1,427,000 cans or bottles of alcoholic beverages had been discovered in one year.
The penalty for consuming alcoholic beverages in Iran is 80 lashes, and after this limit has been imposed twice, repeated consumption of alcoholic beverages can lead to execution.
Source: Radio Farda
