Women addicted to drugs in Iran begin seeking treatment despite taboo

The Washington Post

TEHRAN — On the western outskirts of this city, in an industrial neighborhood of factories and dusty half-constructed lots, a metal-walled building houses women with a secret.

They are female drug addicts, a growing class of people with a habit so taboo in this traditional Islamic society that some Iranians believe they deserve death. But the modest facility here, a substance-abuse rehabilitation center for women, is one sign that attitudes are slowly changing as Iran begins to confront an uncomfortable problem that long went ignored.

The bulk of Afghan opium passes through Iran before it hits the global market, and that access has long contributed to addiction rates that are among the highest in the world. Now they are dramatically rising, particularly among women. Government agencies and international bodies provide conflicting statistics, but Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters estimates that 3 million of Iran’s 76 million citizens are addicts, more than 700,000 of them women — double the number two years ago.

“There is starting to be some recognition that addiction is a disease, not a crime,” said Massoumeh, the director of the small center, which is run by women. “But changing minds takes time.”

That is in large part because of the stigma attached to female substance abuse, as well as a heavy dose of denial about the roots and scope of the problem. At a conference on drugs in the city of Urmia this month, one government official blamed foreign meddling.

“The addiction of women to drugs is a trick by our enemies to attack Islamic values of Iranian families,” Razieh Khodadoust, the director general of the State Welfare Organization of Iran in the West Azerbaijan province, said at the conference. “The enemies of the Islamic republic are planning extensively to spread drugs among Iranian women and they are investing heavily in this project.”

Hidden addiction

Finding drugs here is easy, and the vast majority of addicts use locally produced crystal methamphetamines or heroin and other opium derivatives. Even so, until recently, the mere thought of women with substance abuse problems seemed unfathomable. Shame was incentive enough for most to hide their habit, making the problem even harder to address.