ONCE HIDDEN, DRUG ADDICTION IS CHANGING IRAN

Problem's Impact Challenges Attitudes Of A Strict Society

TEHRAN -- The new potency of a decades-old drug problem is forcing both
reformist and conservative religious factions in Iran to redefine crime and
refocus the government's role in salvaging the lives of growing numbers of
addicts.

A nationwide escalation in drug addiction is not only overloading courts,
overcrowding prisons and overwhelming health systems, but is threatening a
restless generation of young Iranians who have few job opportunities and
practically no outlets for leisure activities in this strict Islamic state.

"The gush of drugs into our country has made a huge social impact on our
society," said Hossein Zaare Seffat, chief of security and law enforcement
in eastern Khorasan province, where more drugs were seized last year than
anywhere else in Iran.

Since the 1979 revolution that transformed Iran from a monarchy to an
Islamic theocracy, government policies aimed at wiping out drug use have
actually exacerbated the problem. The country's ruling clerics deemed drug
addiction a crime, discouraged public acknowledgment of social ills and
refused outside help in confronting internal problems.

But today, the gravity of the drug problem is shattering those taboos.

"We've had social problems before, but this opened a door for raising the
social problems," said Marzieh Sadighi, a former member of parliament who
three years ago helped found the Aftab Society, one of the country's first
nongovernmental organizations dedicated to assisting drug addicts.

The government estimates that 1.2 million Iranians are addicted to drugs
and 800,000 more are regular users. Some recent surveys have placed the
number of drug abusers closer to 3 million -- nearly 5 percent of Iran's 63
million people. Estimates leap to nearly 10 percent of the population in
some cities along major drug trafficking routes.

Earlier figures are impossible to use for comparison because of the
official position that drug addiction was forbidden, officials said.

While opium use has been widely accepted for centuries in Persian culture,
today's addicts are turning to more potent and deadly heroin injections,
raising concerns over further hard-core abuse as well as the spread of HIV,
the virus that causes AIDS. Addiction rates also are rising dramatically
among women and rural populations that previously had no serious abuse
problems.

The rampant increase in domestic drug consumption parallels a dramatic
escalation in the amount of opiates transiting Iran from Afghanistan en
route to markets in Europe, the Middle East and, in small but growing
amounts, the United States.

"Drugs are available and very cheap in our country," said Afarin Rahimi,
35, director of the government Office for Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment.

The current price of a gram of opium in Tehran is about $1.50, the same as
a pack of Marlboro Lights cigarettes, according to the U.N. Drug Control
Program office here.

Nowhere is the change in Iranian attitudes toward drug addiction more
evident than in the peach-colored meeting hall of the Aftab Society, where
nearly 200 men of all ages gathered on a recent sweltering evening.

"My name is Mehdi," said a voice from the audience.

"Salaam, Mehdi," greeted a chorus of voices.

"I used to take 5 grams of heroin and many pills every day," said Mehdi.
"After 44 days, I take 1 gram of opium orally."

The audience clapped enthusiastically.

Five years ago every man in this room could have been arrested and
imprisoned for drug addiction. The concept of standing in a public meeting
and announcing an addiction would have been unthinkable. Offering such a
program would have been illegal.

"After the revolution, many authorities thought they could eradicate every
problem, including drug abuse," Rahimi said. "They allowed six months for
abusers to quit. After that, users went to jail."

Rehabilitation clinics were shut down and prison populations exploded.
Today 60 percent of prison inmates are incarcerated on drug-related
charges, one third of them for drug addiction, according to the government
agency in charge of prisons.

Iran's strict drug laws were amended five years ago to allow drug abusers
to seek treatment from government or licensed private treatment centers.
Although addiction remains a crime, addicts can be exempt from prosecution
while undergoing treatment.

Now, even with 80 outpatient clinics treating 40,000 addicts around the
country, Rahimi said the government can't meet the rising demand for
treatment services. Narcotics Anonymous chapters are multiplying throughout
the country, with an estimated 5,000 members.

Alireza, 28, has been one of the beneficiaries of the treatment programs.
For Alireza, drugs -- a mix of heroin, opium and pills -- offered an escape
from family pressures and a society that bans most forms of public
entertainment.

"Whatever you forbid, people turn to it even more," said Alireza, whose
10-year addiction eventually cost him his job and his small auto workshop.
Nine months ago he began attending Aftab Society sessions after hearing
about them on television, and he said he has been drug-free for the last
five months.

The nation's prisons, however, remain crammed with less fortunate drug
addicts as well as traffickers and distributors.

Mahmoud Amini is director of Mashhad Central Prison, a facility built for
6,000 prisoners that now houses 12,000, a 66 percent increase since he took
over just five years ago. Fifty-five percent of the inmates are imprisoned
on drug charges. While some of the male addicts receive treatment, Amini
said help is not available to most women because of a shortage of doctors
and social workers in the prison.

In some sections of the prison, as many as 22 women are crowded into a
single cell. In one cell, each woman has an infant child. Most of the women
are addicts.

Hamideh Hassanzadeh, 27 and balancing a 5-month-old son on her hip, said
both she and her husband are in prison. They were arrested together at
their house in Mashhad for possession of the opium they had purchased to
support their habit.

"It's difficult enough taking care of children outside," she said. "It goes
without saying it's difficult here."