A former official: The growth rate of addiction in the past three decades has been three times the rate of population growth
The former secretary of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters says that "based on the population growth rate over the past three decades, the bottom of the addiction growth rate has been three times the population growth rate."
Ali Hashemi also told ILNA news agency on Sunday, June 13, that the last growth rate of addiction was in 2015 and was 5.5 percent.
He continued, noting that he had "not seen any new statistics in the past six years," and that the 2015 statistics were also based on self-declarations from people between the ages of 15 and 65.
Nasser Aslani, deputy head of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters, said last September that there are 2.8 million officially registered drug addicts in the country, and it is estimated that there are 1.4 million unregistered drug addicts.
According to statistics from the Cadras Institute, a research and study institution in Tehran, in July 2020, the annual growth of addiction in Iran is estimated at around eight percent, and it is predicted that women's tendency towards drugs will increase in the coming years.
According to the former secretary of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters, nearly 18 million people, including repeat offenders, have been arrested in the past four decades, and nearly 68 percent of these arrests are related to direct and indirect drug crimes.
The Forensic Medicine Organization had previously reported that deaths due to drug abuse, stimulants, narcotics, and multiple use increased by 21.8 percent in 2019 compared to the same period the previous year.
Source: Radio Farda
