Children who run after drugs instead of balls

Susan.Sh.FCNN News Agency: These days, in some provinces of the country, seeing children running after drugs instead of balls has become a bitter but common scene. Many middle-aged Iranians who spent their adolescence four decades ago remember well that in those days, if a teenager had a cigarette in his hand, the elders of the family and neighbors would save earth and time to get him out of there. But today, many of the uglinesses in Iran are covered up by the indifference of the people and, more importantly, the officials.

Regardless of the fact that some of these uglinesses are stamped on the foreheads of every single Iranian person, the stigma attached to child addicts is one such stain of shame. The latest statistics indicate that the number of child addicts between the ages of 7 and 11 in the country, especially in deprived provinces such as Sistan and Baluchestan, is rapidly increasing.

This statistic also includes students, and some of them have engaged in drug distribution in educational settings in addition to consumption. Meanwhile, regime officials are covering up the issue and presenting unrealistic statistics.

First time in the year  It was in 2008 that a responsible official in the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters announced the number of addicted students in the country at 35,000. 

Five years later, another official in the same organization spoke of a figure of 75,000 addicted students, which represented a growth of more than 100 percent in five years.

Two years later, in April 2015, the deputy head of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters announced that the number of addicted students in the country was 130,000. Again, a 100 percent increase, but this time within two years.

But two years later, the Director General of the Office for the Prevention of Social Harms in Education, ignoring the realities visible in the country, especially in schools, announced that the number of students at risk of addiction was 136,000, and that the largest number of addicted students were over the age of 15. 

While the latest statistics from the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters show that one percent of the country's students are addicted to drugs, with a student population of more than 13.5 million, we have more than 135,000 addicted students. However, the Ministry of Education, as one of the main custodians, is covering up these facts and is unwilling to announce or confirm accurate statistics.

 This is while, according to Farid Barati, head of the Center for the Development of Addiction Prevention and Treatment of the National Welfare Organization, there is currently no specific responsible person responsible for this problem. 

In recent weeks, he emphasized in an interview with ILNA News Agency that the Ministry of Health was supposed to take action in coordination with the Education and Training Institute to treat addicted children and students. However, it is unclear what the outcome of this agreement has been. With this agreement, the welfare department is no longer directly responsible for dealing with the problem. In other words, the usual problem of parallel work of different institutions has this time targeted Iranian children.

In these unfortunate circumstances, we have recently witnessed the Director General of the Research and Training Office of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters speaking about the achievements of the Islamic Republic in preventing the spread of addiction in the country.

According to ISNA, he said: "In Iran, significant measures are being taken by 35 organizations to develop primary prevention activities against addiction in target centers, including schools, in such a way that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution has considered the primary prevention approach against addiction as the country's first priority, and by allocating 50 percent of capacity and facilities, efforts are being made to prevent the vulnerability of society's statistics."