TITLE: Choice

Addiction is the biggest crisis Iran has known since the Iran-Iraq war. This has social and economic consequences. 80% of Iranian prisoners are detained for drug consumption and 25 % of murders are caused by drug consumption. According to the ministry of health there are more than three million seven thousand addicts in Iran. The country would thus be the 4th country in terms of drug users. The situation of Iran, which is part of the Golden Crescent (Iran Afghanistan and Pakistan), facilitates production and distribution of drug and makes access easier for user. For specialists, unemployment, inflation, poverty, curiosity, search for pleasure and sexual relations are the main reasons for these individuals to be attracted by drugs. Every year three thousand individuals lost their life because of excessive use of drug. To prevent and control use and traffic, successive governments in Iran have initiated various policies and measures such as arrests, imprisonment, death penalty of drug dealers.

However, some of these users, decide to get clean and go back to the society. A choice which seems easy but turns to be the most difficult choice of their life. The first days, they face difficult and painful withdrawal effects as cold sweat, tachycardia, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, bone ache, insomnia, loss of appetite, stress, confusion… Twenty-one days are needed to end the withdrawal painful symptoms. And because of this physical and psychic pain lot of users give up the process.

World statistics show that only 2% of individuals wishing to stop drug consumption succeed to be clean until the end of their life. Indeed, when these people come back to the society, they are confronted to many difficulties, as finding a job, society’s judgment and mistrust and easy access to drugs. Thus, many of them relapse.

AUTHOR: vali mohseni (Iran, Islamic Republic Of)