The cover of this book boasts that “according to officials, after the revolution, addiction was a type of anti-revolutionary behavior that colonialists supported in order to destroy Islam and the Islamic Revolution. Therefore, it was necessary to put an end to this problem once and for all by taking strict and serious legal and punitive measures.”

But from the very beginning of the book – written by Dr. Emran Mohammad Rezaqi – it seems that the book does not agree with the view that officials had after the revolution. The author of the preface mentions our familiarity as Iranians with opium and its properties from ancient times, but says: “Iranians have not been the promoters of improper use and the problem of opium.”

This cover and preface belong to a work called “Addiction in Iran” written by Dr. Saeed Madani, a sociologist, researcher, and university professor who has been focused on social issues in Iran for many years and has conducted research on them. In this book, Dr. Madani discusses the issue of addicts and drugs in Iran from all aspects, and presents the laws and preventive programs in Iran regarding this issue from the time of the victory of the revolution in February 1979 until 2001. At the end of the preface, the author himself mentions that: “This book is based on a research report conducted in 2005 with the support of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Iran and the Darius Institute. The method of the book is documentary study and its main purpose is to “examine and summarize the experiences of demand reduction management” between the years 1979 and 2001. Efforts have also been made to analyze

This research work has seven chapters, in each of which the author pursues a specific goal. The first chapter is the glossary of the book, in which the author explains his intended meaning and purpose of the words used in the book. In fact, in this chapter, the author’s terminology is clarified for the rest of the book. Concepts such as “addiction”, “substance abuse”, “demand reduction”, “prevention”, “treatment and rehabilitation”, and “harm reduction” are discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 2, however, is a chapter that refers to the experiences of countries in the field of addiction prevention. In this chapter, about 20 countries are examined. Countries with geographical diversity – from the Americas to Europe and Asia – can be understood that the author is trying to identify successful examples around the world and mention their experiences and introduce them to the reader.

The book focuses on the years after the revolution of Bahman 57. However, in the third chapter, the author delves into the past and examines the issue of addiction before this date. They attempt to analyze and describe the periods from the Constitutional Revolution to the Bahman Revolution in this regard, according to the scope of the book.

Chapters four to seven also focus on the era of the book’s goal and, by dividing the periods into the years 58-59, 60-67, 67-72, and 72 to 1380, the main purpose of the book is elaborated in detail. In the conclusion, in the summary chapter, a review and critique of issues such as “stability and continuity of management”, “non-specialized managers”, “security-judicial management”, “reform and improvement process”, and “imbalance between the dynamics of addiction and management transformation” are discussed.

However, in the end of his preface, Dr. Razaghi writes that comprehensive research related to addiction policies in our country is very limited. Therefore, this current study not only has significant scientific value on its own, but it is also hoped that it will pave the way for similar research in our country.

Book Name: Addiction in Iran

Author: Saeed Madani Ghahfarokhi

Publication Date: 2011

Publisher: Third Publishing Company