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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Natalman, and this is Psychoactive, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the

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Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any

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Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media,

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Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, Heed, as

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Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not

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Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show

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Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use

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Speaker 1: any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Today we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about the drug problem and drug policies in

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Speaker 1: a particular country. Probably no other country in the world

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Speaker 1: has had such a fluid and counterintuitive history of rugs

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Speaker 1: as Iran. So my guest today is a professor Maziar Gabi.

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Speaker 1: We crossed paths a few months ago in Mexico City

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Speaker 1: at the conference of the Society of Alcohol and Droyg

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Speaker 1: Historians UH. He's a distinguished professor or lecturer at the

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Speaker 1: University of Exeter in the UK now where he heads

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Speaker 1: the Center of Persian and Iranian Studies. He wrote a

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Speaker 1: book about drugs and politics and Iran and it's a

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Speaker 1: fantastic description of what's happened, especially during the years since

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Speaker 1: Iran became the Islamic Republic with the revolution in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy nine. So Masira, thank you ever so much for

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Speaker 1: joining me on Psychoactive. Hi Don and hi to everyone.

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Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to be here. What I want to

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Speaker 1: say is I've been fascinated by Iran. Really, I think

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Speaker 1: early two thousand, Maziar and almost out of the blue,

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Speaker 1: the government in Iran and the Minister of Justice basically

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Speaker 1: issued a fatua. If I have these facts right, declare

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Speaker 1: that method on maintenance and needle exchange, We're okay under

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Speaker 1: Islamic law. And I just found that fast. I remember

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Speaker 1: I was at a conference at International Harmoniament conference, I

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Speaker 1: think it was in in Northern Ireland, Belfast in two

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Speaker 1: thousand five, and remember standing up as part of my

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Speaker 1: speech there and talking about the fact that that I

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Speaker 1: had told Iran it just issued a thought was saying

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Speaker 1: that all of this was okay, and that meanwhile, our own,

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Speaker 1: quote unquote I had told the United States would not

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Speaker 1: do something differently. So that's what initially caught my attention

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Speaker 1: on this thing. But at the same time, Iran has

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Speaker 1: been a country that's been highly repressive. It's had the

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Speaker 1: death penalty for drug offenses, It's had huge, you know,

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Speaker 1: battles with narco traffickers. So let me just start off

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Speaker 1: by asking you the question what got you interested in

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Speaker 1: looking in this drug issue in Iran. You know, I

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Speaker 1: was a student in my late twenties and I was

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Speaker 1: doing fieldwork in Iran for other purposes, and I noticed that,

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Speaker 1: you know, all around me and everyone I met basically,

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Speaker 1: and also lots of organizations on the ground were active

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Speaker 1: in the field of drug policy and drug treatment. And

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Speaker 1: I started looking for potential articles that could inform me

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Speaker 1: a bit more, and I saw nothing, basically, and so

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Speaker 1: I decided basically to take the case of drugs both

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Speaker 1: historically and in terms of you know, like real life

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Speaker 1: and life world. There's a case study and they spent

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Speaker 1: about seven eight years on the subject, and I'm still

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Speaker 1: working on it and collaborating on it. One thing that's

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Speaker 1: been striking about Iran is that, really, since the end

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Speaker 1: of the war with Iraq in the late eighties, the

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Speaker 1: drug issue seems to have been the number one issue

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Speaker 1: in public opinion, at least in terms of social issues,

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Speaker 1: um almost continuously for decades. I mean, tell me if

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Speaker 1: that's accurate. First of all, but I can also see

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Speaker 1: why this is such a fascinating issue, why I must

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Speaker 1: have been curious that there was so little writing about

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Speaker 1: it give and how important it's been in Iranian politics

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Speaker 1: and culture. Absolutely, of course during the eighties. You know,

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Speaker 1: Iran had been through so much in just less than

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Speaker 1: a decade. Basically, we had the revolution in nineteen seventy nine,

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Speaker 1: with all that a revolution means, you know, it's not

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Speaker 1: simply an event, it's just a dramatic, profound change in

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Speaker 1: people's life and in the way people imagine the futures

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Speaker 1: as well. In the war, you know, a brutal war basically,

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the war that was fought basically

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Speaker 1: in the same way that First World War and Second

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Speaker 1: World War we fought, so you know, trenches and you

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Speaker 1: know this kind of stuff. But at the same time,

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Speaker 1: I should actually sort I mentioned that while all of

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Speaker 1: this was happening, the drug issue and was still at

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Speaker 1: the very sort of core of political issues and political

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Speaker 1: concerns for their and in government right after the revolution.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I just can't recall a statement by the

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Speaker 1: late Ayatollahomany, you know, the leader of the revolution and

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Speaker 1: the supreme leader of Iran in the eighties, that he

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Speaker 1: said that we have to fight the war on two fronts.

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Speaker 1: The first front we all know about it, it's the

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Speaker 1: war against Iraq an Iraqi aggression. But the second front,

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Speaker 1: which was not at all less important, was the war

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Speaker 1: against dragon addiction. So this is just to give you

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Speaker 1: a sense of how entrenched it was with the political

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Speaker 1: history of revolution in Iran and also the way basically

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Speaker 1: it made me understand that it was a topic that

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Speaker 1: had deep roots in the post revolutionary history of Iran

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Speaker 1: and so it really needed to be discussed with all

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Speaker 1: your attention. Now, if we bring it down to the

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Speaker 1: drug issue, one of the things that Iran has in

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Speaker 1: common with other countries, especially in Asia, is opium has

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Speaker 1: been part of its history for thousands of years. And

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Speaker 1: if you jump to the present right now, um my understanding.

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Speaker 1: We all of times think about the US is having

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Speaker 1: one of the biggest opia problems in the world, but

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Speaker 1: if you look per capita, Iran and Pakistan and Afghanistan

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Speaker 1: are probably the three countries with the highest per capita

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Speaker 1: opium use and addiction rates by my opius, I say,

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Speaker 1: opium and heroin and other you know opiates um in

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Speaker 1: the world. So MASI are Now I've sort of provided

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Speaker 1: this broader context. I mean, what more can you tell

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Speaker 1: us then about sort of the Iran special relationship with

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Speaker 1: opium going back historically, you know, opium has had a

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Speaker 1: very important historical role in both Iran's economy and in

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Speaker 1: Iranian social sort of traditions and social life. From the

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Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, the Iranian economy and I can culture

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Speaker 1: shifts towards the cultivation of the poppy. That was connected

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Speaker 1: also to the sort of increased demands for copy related products,

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Speaker 1: particularly opium, across the world. And that shifting agricultural production

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Speaker 1: has profound effects on on the way Iranian if you

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Speaker 1: want to shift to capitalism happens, you know, with capital accommodation,

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Speaker 1: with new cash crops, you know, instead of uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: food crops. For a country which up to you know,

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Speaker 1: a century ago, it was mostly agricultural and producing food

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Speaker 1: for his own consumption, that was a massive, massive change

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Speaker 1: which had its own effects of course on the rising

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Speaker 1: opium consumption on the vast scale that you know, we

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Speaker 1: witness of course from the early twentieth century with people

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Speaker 1: oftimes failed to realize is that opium is integrated into

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Speaker 1: many societies in some respects, almost like alcohol. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you have the United States in the late nineteenth century

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Speaker 1: far more people using um opius in various forms than

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Speaker 1: is the case today. It's in you know, loud and

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Speaker 1: m liquid. Opius has used as you know, this is

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Speaker 1: the day before they had aspirin or penicillan, so when

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Speaker 1: they had bad sanitation. So opium is really sort of

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Speaker 1: a universal pain reliever throughout much of the world. Now,

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Speaker 1: what you see happening in I think Southwest Asia and

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Speaker 1: but also in Southeast Asia is that it's also very

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Speaker 1: commonly used, not just among lower class but among upper class.

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Speaker 1: It's seen as not just being something that's a soporific,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes they can be a stimulant um. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's not just you know, sort of opium dens but

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Speaker 1: high end almost like cocktail lounge versions of these things.

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Speaker 1: And you see this in China, you see it in

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Speaker 1: parts of India, obviously, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran. You see it

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Speaker 1: among the Chinese minorities in Southeast Asia, but in the

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Speaker 1: Iran do you think it goes even deeper than it

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Speaker 1: does in the neighboring countries of like sat Pakistan and

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan and elsewhere. This is really interesting question. Um. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: in the run um opium culture really sort of became

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Speaker 1: a social practice that characterized really sort of the higher

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Speaker 1: lead as well as the middle class and the lower class,

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Speaker 1: but of course in different forms and different qualities of

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Speaker 1: products being consumed. And this is particularly true when we

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Speaker 1: speak about the sort of pre revolutionary period, I mean

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Speaker 1: certain parts of around uh, the whole social life really

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Speaker 1: turned around meeting, drinking tea, smoking opition. And this was

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Speaker 1: mostly done in private settings at home of well of people,

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Speaker 1: which had you know, specific quarters and rooms where open

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Speaker 1: was consumed smoked mostly through a specific type of pipe

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Speaker 1: which in i run is called four. It's a valiation

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Speaker 1: of a Chinese pipe. It's very peculiar to Iran and

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Speaker 1: and also quite interesting and esthetically I would say pleasing

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Speaker 1: when you when you look at it, I mean you

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Speaker 1: know it's a pipe and the head of which is

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Speaker 1: in the shape of a poppy. Uh and uh. And

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Speaker 1: and of course that many of course valiations and precious

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Speaker 1: ones of course have inscribed poetic versus and poetical lines,

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Speaker 1: which shows you how deeply ingrained opium consumption, particularly opum smoking,

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Speaker 1: had become by the turn of the twentieth century. It

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Speaker 1: is true that opium has always more or less been

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Speaker 1: part of social life in Iran and also the practice

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Speaker 1: of self care and medical care in premodern times, but

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Speaker 1: prior to the twentieth century it was mostly eaten in

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Speaker 1: the forms of pills actually, you know, and Iran still now.

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Speaker 1: When someone is really uh, sort of a local and speaks,

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Speaker 1: you know, with ease in public, people can always make

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Speaker 1: a comment say, oh, he's a talio key, which in

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Speaker 1: person means he's an opium music, because you know, maintaining

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Speaker 1: calm and lucidity of thought while being in front of

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Speaker 1: the public is not easy. I mean, we may say

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Speaker 1: that the equivalent of this is, you know, some people

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Speaker 1: use so called smart drugs, you know, pharmaceutical products that

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Speaker 1: help them to maintain concentration and think faster when they

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Speaker 1: need to deliver speeching in public. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: prior to the revolution, I mean, there was widespread acceptance

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Speaker 1: even even in quarters of government, regarding opium use. Of course,

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Speaker 1: this is shifting and has shifted. I mean over the

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Speaker 1: course of the twentieth century, uh, you know, mostly by

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Speaker 1: adopting westernized ideas of consumption and entertainment. You know, so

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Speaker 1: alcohol has become a less sort of stigmatized so do product,

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Speaker 1: whereas drugs such as opium among the younger generation is

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Speaker 1: seen as something that really belongs to another era and

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Speaker 1: it's more stigmatized. I would say, So it is much

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Speaker 1: more you sort of common to see someone drinking nowadays,

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Speaker 1: in especially in the in the larger urban centers than

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Speaker 1: smoking opium among you know, new generations of it. Well,

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Speaker 1: let me askee this because visu, the alcohol, I mean,

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Speaker 1: alcohol is traditionally Haram. It's prohibited in Islamic culture. And

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Speaker 1: you say, unlike say East Asia, where societies have alcohol

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Speaker 1: and they have opium, in Iran you have a place

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Speaker 1: where opium and I guess cannabis for that matter, are

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Speaker 1: not Haran. They're not you know, technically forbidden under Islamic law.

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Speaker 1: But alcohol is. And is there something about the prohibition

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Speaker 1: on alcohol that actually gives opium a more a sort

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Speaker 1: of added special value. And it's in Islamic society and

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Speaker 1: an Iranian society. The fact is that really what happens

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Speaker 1: after nineteen seventy nine, with the revolution, is that Romany

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Speaker 1: declares opium to be around, and that was embraced more

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Speaker 1: or less by the rest of the clergy. It is

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Speaker 1: interesting because with the Islamization, you know, if you want

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Speaker 1: of governance and government, the distinction between religion and sort

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Speaker 1: of public law is blurred, and therefore what is forbidden

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Speaker 1: in you know, in the legal order of the country.

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Speaker 1: In that case, like all drugs, including opium, cocaine and whatever,

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Speaker 1: they all become forbidden also for religion. So actually the

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Speaker 1: country of what we would normally think that religion sort

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Speaker 1: of imposes, you know, it's decreased upon public life. It's

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Speaker 1: it's the adoption of you know, the international sort of

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Speaker 1: anti narcotic discourse that makes religious leaders to to ban

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Speaker 1: religious to cree I mean by by by basically declaring

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Speaker 1: a fatwa religious decree and and calling opium and other

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Speaker 1: substances as around. So nowadays most of the clergy would

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Speaker 1: have no doubt in saying that in Islam all narcotic

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Speaker 1: substances and all illicit drugs are also around. But what

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Speaker 1: you said is interesting because prior to this sort of

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Speaker 1: moment of embraced by very religious leaders of of of

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Speaker 1: sort of drug prohibition opium and cannabis, but mostly opium

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Speaker 1: was seen as less problematic, more indigenous than alcoholic beverages.

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Speaker 1: So and that of course has had an effect on

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Speaker 1: how people generally and the general population perceived the substance.

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Speaker 1: But it is also it is itself also sort of

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Speaker 1: showing that these substances were widespread, whereas alcohol in general,

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Speaker 1: fire the mid twenty cent tree was not really readily

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Speaker 1: available across the country. So it may have been available

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Speaker 1: in major cities, but you know, most people wouldn't drink.

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Speaker 1: There is a sort of a tradition of kind of

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Speaker 1: homebrew of beer or other sorts of things throughout the

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Speaker 1: throughout Iran in rural areas. Of course, yeah, that these

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Speaker 1: traditions mostly connected also to minorities. So you know, Armenian

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Speaker 1: and Jewish minorities in Iran, which were you know, rather

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Speaker 1: large groups up to the twentieth century had the right,

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Speaker 1: the legal right to brew and particular to produce wine.

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Speaker 1: But also some Iranian producers. But I would say that

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Speaker 1: it was less common for rural communities to drink the time,

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Speaker 1: and drinking was mostly I wouldn't say exclusively but mostly

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Speaker 1: a practice carried out by by you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: upper classes m h. Whereas open was classless. You know.

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Speaker 1: Now there is a fascinating phase ease in Iranian drug

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Speaker 1: policy in the seventies which I want to raise in

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Speaker 1: part because I was in part shocked that I did

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Speaker 1: not know about it. I've talked in past episodes, as

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Speaker 1: in Psychoactive, about what happens in the first half of

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century when the global drug prohibition regime is

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Speaker 1: emerging in you know, with the US playing a powerful

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Speaker 1: proselytizing role, but other government's active as well, and they're

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Speaker 1: and it's focused really on opium and opium control of

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Speaker 1: conventions in the first nineteen o nine opium control of

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Speaker 1: conventions and the subsequent conventions. And as a result, what

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Speaker 1: happens both in Southwest Asia and Southeast Asia is that

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Speaker 1: opium control systems are set up, registration systems where people,

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Speaker 1: generally the elderly in Southeast Asia is oftentimes the Chinese

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Speaker 1: minorities can basically register, not unlike registering for say, a

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Speaker 1: method on program, and then get their opium in clinics

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Speaker 1: or pharmacies. And the system is tax and it becomes

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Speaker 1: a fairly orderly way of dealing with opium, and a

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Speaker 1: somewhat more regulated way in both Southwest Asia and Southeast Asia.

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Speaker 1: But then the kind of you know, prohibitionist mentality in

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Speaker 1: the US results in that thing being shut down. Now,

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Speaker 1: what happens in the middle of the twentieth century, um

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Speaker 1: is that most of these opium monopoly opium control systems

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Speaker 1: get shut down under pressure from the US, from the

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Speaker 1: League of Nations, from the United Nations. So that you

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Speaker 1: get to the nineteen fifties and sixties, and basically there

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Speaker 1: are essentially, as far as I know, no such opium

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Speaker 1: maintenance systems in existence. And then out of the blue,

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Speaker 1: at least from where I'm looking, the Shah in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty nine or seventy decides to reinitiate this program. And

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Speaker 1: so by the middle late seventies you now have Iran,

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Speaker 1: as I think, the only country in the world within

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Speaker 1: opium maintenance regular story system like the ones that existed

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Speaker 1: earlier in the century two thou people registered. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: I it's reading about this in your book, mus I mean,

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Speaker 1: how does this happen? Why does this happen? Why does

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Speaker 1: the Shah who is so keen for close relationships with

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Speaker 1: the you know, the US and so keen on modernization.

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Speaker 1: How did and why does that happen at that time? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the question I have asked myself as well. And

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Speaker 1: I mean the response I come up with, I hope

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Speaker 1: is exhaustive, is that it was a sort of combination

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Speaker 1: of events and of situations. Basically, you know, first of all,

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Speaker 1: something that comes as a surprise, often he's not a

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Speaker 1: surprise because when we look back at the history of

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Speaker 1: drug policy in Iran and the approach that sort of

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Speaker 1: successive Iranian governments had during the twentieth century visa the opium,

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Speaker 1: I noticed at least that there were examples of an

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Speaker 1: interest in maintenance policies on opium already early in the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century. This was right after the first convention of

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Speaker 1: open control in nineteen o nine. In nineteen twelve, but

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Speaker 1: of course I ran you know, from then onwards starts

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Speaker 1: to basically restrict the sort of approachated test towards opium.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen sixty nine, after fourteen years of restrict militarized

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Speaker 1: eradication of the poppy and opium economy in Iran, they

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Speaker 1: shall decides as you said, to introduce this sort of

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Speaker 1: regulated market and medicalized program of open distribution. This happens

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Speaker 1: basically because while I RUN had prohibited opening production and

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Speaker 1: public cultivation from nineteen fifty five onwards, Afghanistan and Turkey

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Speaker 1: kept producing large amounts of opium and opium, much of

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Speaker 1: it you know, enter the Run illegally, and Iran having had,

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Speaker 1: you know, throughout twentieth century a large population of opium

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Speaker 1: and herron uses, and particularly from nineties and fifty seven

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Speaker 1: herron appeared in I RUN, so quite early on actually

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Speaker 1: in terms of herring culture, the shah and and the

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Speaker 1: entourage of course of the shah Uh, in order to

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Speaker 1: put pressure on American allies, but mostly and And and

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Speaker 1: the United States in particular, decided to go back to

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Speaker 1: a regulated, medicalized program, which basically would cut the link

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Speaker 1: between Afghan opium and opiate producers and Iranian criminal organizations

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Speaker 1: distributing illicit opium inside Iran, and the state would basically

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Speaker 1: took over the opium economy. And what is interesting is

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Speaker 1: that so we would expect that with the regulated market

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Speaker 1: for the opium, you know, supervised by medical professionals, the

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Speaker 1: approach towards drug offenses might be milder, you know, more lenient,

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Speaker 1: but what happens is quite the country. We have a regulated,

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Speaker 1: you know, state monopoly of opium, and the state actually

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Speaker 1: applies the death penalty against drug traffickers. What is the

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Speaker 1: rational behind this, I mean, in the rational in my view,

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Speaker 1: is that really the path of the state, and the

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Speaker 1: Shah wanted to make sure that since now opium is

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Speaker 1: in the interests of the state, it's you know, it's

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Speaker 1: part of the state economy. They have no competitors and

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Speaker 1: elicit criminal organizations basically do not increased prices in order

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Speaker 1: to compete with the legal economy of opium. And as

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Speaker 1: I understand it, the market was sort of half older

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Speaker 1: people over the age of sixty who had sort of

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Speaker 1: more liberal access to the opium, and then a whole

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Speaker 1: the other half of the where people were younger who

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Speaker 1: could get it, you know, basically recommend it by a doctor,

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Speaker 1: not unlike the way that medical marijuana has been recommended

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Speaker 1: by doctors in the US, where it could be used

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Speaker 1: for pain or even for I guess, treating addiction. I mean,

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Speaker 1: do I have that right from what I read in

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Speaker 1: your book exactly exactly, so you know, over sixty people

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Speaker 1: could just go and and get their basically ratio of

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Speaker 1: opium easily from a pharmacy, and people under sixty needed

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Speaker 1: you know, a GP, a doctor, a physician to prescribe

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Speaker 1: you know them opium, and and the reasons for prescription

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Speaker 1: were the most different. I mean, you know, it could

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Speaker 1: be from you know, I have a chronic dependence to opium,

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Speaker 1: so I need opium and that was sufficient. Or I

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Speaker 1: have back pain, I have a headache, I have you know,

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Speaker 1: stomach problems. And there was really a long list of

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Speaker 1: potential reasons for which you could be prescribed opium. Mm hmm.

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Speaker 1: So why is he run the only country in the

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Speaker 1: world to do this? I mean, other countries have powerful

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Speaker 1: traditions that you know, going back hundreds of not thousands

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Speaker 1: of years of opium use in Southwest Asia, Southern Asia,

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Speaker 1: and Southeast Asia, but none of them do it. I mean,

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Speaker 1: to the extent that you've looked at other countries in

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Speaker 1: the world, you have any idea why Iran was alone

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Speaker 1: in doing this in the seventies. It's really a good question.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's often easier to say why someone does

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Speaker 1: something rather than why they don't do it. But I guess,

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Speaker 1: I guess, you know, the sort of growing sort of

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Speaker 1: assertiveness of past of Iran in the seventies is surely

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Speaker 1: I think in case, I mean, in my view, from

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Speaker 1: the cases absent foreign pressure, particularly US pressure on drug

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Speaker 1: control have been really really influential in the shaping of policy,

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Speaker 1: especially following the fifties. So after the Second World War.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, I may say that, you know,

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Speaker 1: Iran had a large portion of the population that consumed opium.

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Speaker 1: Without this habits becoming a manifest problem, something that you know,

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Speaker 1: would cause a sort of moral outrage in the public.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure there are other cases in which in which

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Speaker 1: there has been widespread use of opium without you know,

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Speaker 1: what some people you know, called moral panic. But but

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Speaker 1: in general, I you know, if you go beyond opium

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Speaker 1: and look at coca and cocaine. You know, countries in

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Speaker 1: Latin America nowadays are trying to move towards a regulated market.

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Speaker 1: I mean, of course, Latin America being too close to

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Speaker 1: the northern neighbor to the US makes things very difficult.

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Speaker 1: But you know, the interest and and sort of division

379
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Speaker 1: is there putting it into place. Sometimes it is really

380
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Speaker 1: costly and in a way. I mean, Bolivia and Peru

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Speaker 1: do stand out as being somewhat unique in maintaining the

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Speaker 1: legal status of coca. I mean, right from the beginning,

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Speaker 1: they make it clear that they're signing out international conventions,

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Speaker 1: but they have a special p which to be abow

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Speaker 1: to do this, which it seems that none of the

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Speaker 1: countries that had opium as their core traditional uh sort

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Speaker 1: of psychotropic psychoactive plant product, we're able to do early on.

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Speaker 1: I think, I mean, it's I think this is an

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Speaker 1: excellent point. I mean, the fact is that although opium

390
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Speaker 1: has always had a place in the cultural life of

391
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Speaker 1: Iran and other countries where you know, open is important India, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan,

392
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:36,119
Speaker 1: I mean you and many other places including Turkey, it

393
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Speaker 1: never became an uncontested substance. I mean, what I mean

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Speaker 1: is that with modernization, with the establishment of the sort

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Speaker 1: of modern nation state across the world. You know, we're

396
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Speaker 1: talking about the late nineteenth century, early tenth century, open

397
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Speaker 1: was contentious because part of the population and part of

398
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Speaker 1: the elites so as undermining the efforts to basically create

399
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Speaker 1: a modern nation that was not indulging in you know,

400
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 1: sort of unproductive habit and and and and of course

401
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 1: part of the elites were also consuming opium, so you

402
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: know there were different debates around around what to do

403
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: with these substances. I mean, Iran itself, you know, has

404
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 1: had long, long debates since the nineteenth century about what

405
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:31,679
Speaker 1: to do with opium, whether to ban it, not to

406
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:35,399
Speaker 1: ban it, and these debates actually predated, you know, many

407
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 1: of the drug policy debates that we you know, we've

408
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:42,959
Speaker 1: been looking at starting from early twentieth century. So because

409
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 1: the substance is indigenous to around and has been part

410
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 1: of the cultural and political life, you know, the opinions

411
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: are divergent, but you know, at different moments and different

412
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Speaker 1: sort of political conditions, you know, specific groups had the

413
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Speaker 1: upper hand. You know, some times where the prohibsionists sometimes

414
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 1: we're not the prohibsionist. Again, let's let's the first shot.

415
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 1: You know, he established a modern state in ninety five.

416
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Speaker 1: You know, he was about to establish a republic of course,

417
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Speaker 1: because he was a military leader, you know, so he

418
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: was he was a soldier, so you know, there was

419
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: no reason for him to establish a monarchy. But then

420
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: under foreign pressure, republics were seen as more unruly and

421
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Speaker 1: Le's culptable. You know, he was persuaded to establish a monarchy.

422
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Speaker 1: And you know, as a soldier, you know, he really

423
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Speaker 1: believed in you know, more than his ideas of nation

424
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 1: building through the army and development programs. But you know,

425
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 1: also as in Iranian you know, he had developed the

426
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:50,239
Speaker 1: habit of smoking opium. This was quite ambiguous, you know

427
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:54,719
Speaker 1: for someone who you know, was westernizing Iran. So you know,

428
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 1: from then onwards, really, you know, opium had this ambiguous

429
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: place in Iranian politics. And and sometimes the policy is

430
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: put in place where not really representative of of the

431
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: cultural practice or even of the ideas of people in

432
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:17,000
Speaker 1: power unless so people you know, like we're part of,

433
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: you know, sort of ordinary social groups. We'll be talking

434
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: more after we hear this ad. You know, I remember

435
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: I meant seventy nine and I was twenty two. I

436
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: was graduating from college, And I mean the Iranian revolution

437
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: that shot is out i Atollah many returns, the establishment

438
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: of what appeared to us as a the theocratic dictatorship

439
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 1: in the Iran and and people you know, they're you know,

440
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: both political dissidents but also drug users and drug dealers

441
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: are being executed or tordtured or in prison. So that

442
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: period of the nineteen eighties, Um, I mean, obviously there's

443
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 1: this major war, you know, launched by Sodom Hussein that

444
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: drags on throughout the eighties and like a half a

445
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: million people die, most of the Iranian So this is

446
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: amazing drain on Iran. But at the same time, Um,

447
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: there is this war on drugs going on. And I

448
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: think there's a line you're using your book. I don't

449
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: know if you're quoting somebody else or if it's yours,

450
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 1: but you say, the prohibition of drugs and alcohol became

451
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: a new religion. So this period, this first decade under

452
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: Howmany and where the current Ayatollah how many how Many

453
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: was at that point was the president in the eighties,

454
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 1: I mean, is it all about just shutting down everything,

455
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,479
Speaker 1: being as doctrinaire, as religious as possible. And is this

456
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: a period in the last forty years when there is

457
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: a sort of more religiously driven drug policy which then

458
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: really morphs into something quite different thereafter. Yeah, I mean

459
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: the line you met ancient his mind. I'm very happy

460
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 1: about that line because in the way I actually believe that,

461
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 1: you know, prohibitionist regime throughout the world are quite religiously driven,

462
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: I mean in their sort of dogmatism. But yes, with

463
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: the Islamic Revolution, really with drugs entered the political realm,

464
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: you know, openly, and you know they association with drugs

465
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: are seen as country revolutionary and that means you know,

466
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: punished with you know what is often the punishment of

467
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: people being seen as country revolutionary, which is you know,

468
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: through revolutionary courts and with very harsh punishments, you know,

469
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:48,880
Speaker 1: including the death sentence sold Holly, which was the first

470
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: public prosecutor of the Islamic Republic in nineteen seventy nine,

471
00:30:55,320 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: nine eighty. This is so somehow forgotten from the annals

472
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: of history. When he was appointed first public prosecutor, he

473
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: was also appointed at the same time the first head

474
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: of Anti Narcotics of the Islamic Republic. So the two

475
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 1: appointments went hand in hand because of course, you know,

476
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: political repression and repression of narcotics were seen as you know,

477
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 1: absolutely connected to each other, and often political opponents and

478
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: people connected to the Patavi state and pat La vi elite.

479
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: We're seen also as either indulging in a drug consumption

480
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: or involved in law skate transnational drug trafficking. This sort

481
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:48,479
Speaker 1: of framework of treatment of addiction and the sort of

482
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: medicalized policy for opium uses is disbanded immediately after the revolution,

483
00:31:55,960 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: but the political leadership provides a six month period two

484
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: people who were on the program to kick their habit, basically,

485
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 1: that's what they say, and they provide them with the

486
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: opium prescription. But they decide, and this is a clear

487
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: ideological decision on behalf of the new revolutionary government to

488
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 1: import opium from India rather than using opium from poppy

489
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:28,080
Speaker 1: fields in Iran, just to make sure that the message

490
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: is clear, they will not tolerate the popular economy in

491
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: Iran whatsoever. So clearly, the particularly the first two years

492
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: after the revolution is the most sort of prohibitionist of all.

493
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: It is also instrumental, you know, after revolution, having very

494
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: harsh punishments for something that's was more or less widespread

495
00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: prior was very instrumental to put people in jail, opponents

496
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 1: in jail, or people who were like not useful, and

497
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: and of course, I mean, you know, all sorts of

498
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: terrible stories going on with you know, people using drugs

499
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: in those years, and I refer to some of these

500
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: in my book. These are also you know, sort of

501
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: common knowledge and Run, and it's written in Run as well.

502
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: I mean that, you know, the treatment of drug uses

503
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: following the revolution wasn't really particularly you know, sort of

504
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: laudable or you know, right, I mean, it's I mean,

505
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: it's harsh punishment, it's public shaming, all of the sort

506
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: of primitive approaches that we sort of look compound with contempt.

507
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: I think even there at the day, I mean there

508
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: was even some negative reaction from members of the Iranian public,

509
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: I mean even legitimate sources who saw some of what

510
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: kal Kali was doing is antithetical to some core Islamic principles,

511
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: right absolutely. I mean, you know what is interesting, and

512
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 1: this is I think quite sort of I knew, I

513
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 1: guess to for an audience that is not really sort

514
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: of perhaps interested in the in Iran or you know,

515
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:11,960
Speaker 1: follows news about Irun mostly from newspapers and online outlets,

516
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 1: that the debate within Iran, even during the height of

517
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: the revolution, has always been quite diverse. I mean, the

518
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:25,680
Speaker 1: you know, always multiple lines of criticism have existed within

519
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: the history of the Islamic Republic, but also multiple lines

520
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 1: of repression. Of course, that that needs to be said.

521
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: People criticize really I mean, perhaps it is useful to

522
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 1: know that today I told, really is not someone who

523
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: celebrated in Iran. Quite the contrary. He's seen as a

524
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:50,359
Speaker 1: as a tragic, shameful or somehow character of the revolution,

525
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: but he basically represents the harshest face of that revolution.

526
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: I mean himself. I mean I read his diaries and

527
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:04,919
Speaker 1: his autobiography. When appointed the head of the Anti Narcotics Bureau,

528
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: he said that he was aware that this will leave

529
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: you know, a terrible, a terrible legacy for himself in history.

530
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: He was aware, you know that the position and the situation,

531
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 1: the revolution situation, uh would be violent, and this would

532
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:27,320
Speaker 1: of course mean that you know, his legacy in history

533
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: would be associated to the violence of disease. So when

534
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 1: we get to the late nineteen eighties, I mean, there's

535
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: obviously this period of the drug war in the first

536
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 1: decade of the Islamic regime um. But at the same time,

537
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:45,280
Speaker 1: heroin uses increasing, and you know, there's a phenomens beginning

538
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: to happen throughout other parts developing world. You know, also

539
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 1: in East Agea, which has very you know, very harsh

540
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: views on drugs, but you have the beginnings of concerns

541
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 1: about the spread of HIV AIDS among drug users. You

542
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 1: had the beginning have talk among health officials and civil

543
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 1: society groups. And this happens not just an Iran, but

544
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 1: other places about whether they need to adopt some of

545
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: the measures in the in the West, like needle exchange,

546
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: like method on maintenance. But what's distinctive about Iran is

547
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 1: that when this gets going, it gets going on a

548
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: level and a magnitude that is unparalleled virtually anywhere else

549
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: in the world. I mean, I remember being in Malaysia

550
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 1: and nearly two thousands and there was a little couple

551
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: a couple of small needle exchange programs in the big

552
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: cities in the beginning of methanol programing. Has something similar

553
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 1: going on in in in Vietnam, something similar Indonesia. You

554
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: had parts of India that have been repressed at beginning

555
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 1: to embrace these sorts of things. Um, I mean, China

556
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: starts to get into in a bigger way, also in

557
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:50,200
Speaker 1: the context of a very you know, harsh drug policy.

558
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: But I'd say apart from China, Iran is the one

559
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,760
Speaker 1: that embraces this in a way. And you know, beginning

560
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,319
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties and certainly when you it into

561
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: the arts, unlike really anywhere else in the world. And

562
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 1: so what explains that? Is it a magnitude the problem

563
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:12,320
Speaker 1: or a spirit of pragmatism or what do you say?

564
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 1: Thanks for this question. I mean it really makes me

565
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:17,720
Speaker 1: think as well. While I'm speaking to a certain extent,

566
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: I think that is something you know, which is inherent

567
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 1: in revolutionary regimes, that they are prone to extreme policies,

568
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: of course in the immediate aftermath and afterlife of the revolution.

569
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: But at the same time they are always always sort

570
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: of capable of of change and dynamism in post intervention,

571
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 1: contrary to you know, other states to school countries you know,

572
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 1: where revolutions have not happened. I mean, what happens in

573
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 1: Iran is again a conjuncture, I guess. You know. Of course,

574
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: on the one hand, uh, there is an undeniable public

575
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:57,320
Speaker 1: health problem. You know, this is you know, basically in

576
00:37:57,520 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: HIV epidemic which starts in prison, which affects regions, the

577
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 1: entire regions. I mean, these are regions mostly affected by

578
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 1: the Iran Iraq War, which itself actually, you know, it's

579
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,759
Speaker 1: quite it's quite interesting because you see how the sort

580
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: of deep, deep effect conflict leaves it stains, you know,

581
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: on on on on the health of the wider population

582
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,359
Speaker 1: even decade a decade after that. So we're talking about

583
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: the western regions of around that having initially an HIV epidemic,

584
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,800
Speaker 1: which then moves the general population. You know, it starts

585
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 1: from injecting drug uses incarcerated and then moves to their wives,

586
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 1: their families, their children, and so on and so forth.

587
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: So when you look at other elements of the Muslim world,

588
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: you don't see that flexibility there much more like the US.

589
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 1: And what I'm curious about, I mean, I mean in

590
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: the Arab world, I mean, you see almost very little

591
00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,439
Speaker 1: in the way of progressive drug policies, and it's very

592
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:06,399
Speaker 1: difficult getting harm reduction going. And um, if you look um,

593
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 1: you know in Muslim you know, countries like Indonesia, I mean,

594
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: little bits, but very difficult to get it going. And

595
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: what I wonder how much of this has to do

596
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 1: with the fact that Iran is primarily as she Sa

597
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 1: religion as opposed to Soony, is there is there a

598
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: greater flexibility in the Shia perspectives on dealing with these

599
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 1: issues that allowed this to happen, Or is it you

600
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:32,800
Speaker 1: think primarily other elements. I mean, I personally think that

601
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: this sort of shea element might have some influence in

602
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 1: terms of the flexibility of interpretation that is given to

603
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:50,480
Speaker 1: religious tourists, but it's not a sort of determining fact.

604
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 1: I mean the other issues I think that I have

605
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,480
Speaker 1: influenced this, and part of it has to do with

606
00:39:56,560 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: Iran's history of experiment action in drug policy. And this

607
00:40:01,719 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: goes during the Islamic Revolution, during the Islamic Republic Empire,

608
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 1: Islamic Revolution, so you know, the last hundred years of

609
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 1: drug policy experimentation and the activism of social groups and

610
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: even political elites that have been keen in looking at

611
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: alternative policies, not only in the field of drugs, but

612
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: in other fields of public health and social policy. You know,

613
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 1: I can make few examples. For instance, perhaps one example

614
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 1: that my interest people listening is that from the late

615
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 1: eighties onwards, Iran has a state sanctioned, state provided program

616
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 1: for sex reassignment. So that means that if you you know,

617
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 1: if people want to change their gender, and you know,

618
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: and from men to women or woman to men, the

619
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: Iranian uh public authorities prob I support for that in

620
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:07,360
Speaker 1: terms of financial support as well as psychological and health support.

621
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: Is this unique in the Islamic world? But in terms

622
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 1: of drug policy, I see, I think that, you know,

623
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:21,239
Speaker 1: she a jurisprudence enabled flexibility in terms of finding a

624
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: solution that is that can be basically seen as legitimate.

625
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: So that would be the case in Sunny jurisprudence. Is

626
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: that right? The fact is that in Suna jurisprudence there

627
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: is not a clear jurisprudential order. There are different schools

628
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: of taught and schools of interpretation, but the role of

629
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: the jurists is less prominent than in she Islam. In

630
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: she Islam, every sort of every person has to during

631
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 1: his life basically to follow a living jurists and as

632
00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:01,279
Speaker 1: long as this person is alive, his interpretation of the law,

633
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 1: which is connected also to everyday matters, very much like

634
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 1: in Judaism. You know, can I do this or can

635
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: I live? You know, as with someone who's doing this

636
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 1: as a neighbor or things like that. Sometimes very trivial matters.

637
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: I can refer to this person to basically explain me

638
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: what is the correct religious behavior? Well, you know, if

639
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: I can mention something is that we did the study

640
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,800
Speaker 1: a few years ago in which we contacted the sort

641
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:31,840
Speaker 1: of leading religious jurists in the shil world, and we

642
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: asked them whether they're, you know, proven that scientific research

643
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:41,399
Speaker 1: confirms that marianna has a medical benefit for people using it.

644
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: Would you be fine with, you know, a government approving

645
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:53,400
Speaker 1: a medical marianna program, a medical cannabis program. And almost

646
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:58,359
Speaker 1: all of them agreed with this assertion. None of them said, no,

647
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: marianna is always and regardless of any situation, illegal or around.

648
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: They all said, if there is proven medical evidence, of

649
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:14,879
Speaker 1: course a Muslim can consume marijuana for health benefits, very

650
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 1: clearly and very shortly. So the fact is that she

651
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 1: had jurious prudence claims to be always updated with the

652
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: world of today, as it is also intalmoodic Judaism. Of course,

653
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 1: the fact is that, you know, why do you have

654
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 1: rabbis interpreting the law constantly? Because the things of the

655
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:38,320
Speaker 1: world change and changing situation require changing interpretations. Of course,

656
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: within a very conservative framework. Doesn't mean, you know, there's

657
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,560
Speaker 1: a sudden change in you know, like food processing, and

658
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:48,879
Speaker 1: you know a rabbi says, no, you know, you can

659
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,320
Speaker 1: eat this on Saturday. You know that's not not gonna happen,

660
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: and the same as in she Adjurius prudence, of course.

661
00:43:55,120 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: But what I mean is when that that specific cultural, social,

662
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:07,319
Speaker 1: and political conditions in which, for instance, cannabis might be

663
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 1: seen as ptomatically useful within the I running context, for instance,

664
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 1: or for that matter, opium, it is not unlikely to

665
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: think that there would be a religious fatua a decree

666
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: that will legitimize the use of it. But it was

667
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:26,279
Speaker 1: the most I realize I'm working, I have so much

668
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:28,279
Speaker 1: talk about we're gonna be running out of time. So

669
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 1: one thing that's to an Iran that is common what

670
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 1: you see in other places is that part of what

671
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: gets harm reduction going in the late eighties and nineties,

672
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:38,839
Speaker 1: both what you're talking about the United States, we're talking

673
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: about Europe, or in a later period developing world, it's

674
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: basically has some combination of kind of activists harm reduction

675
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:51,280
Speaker 1: activists of sort of courageous physicians, of people in public

676
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 1: health circles who are aware of what's going on in

677
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:57,320
Speaker 1: the nationally who see the threat of HIV eights taking

678
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:00,359
Speaker 1: off both in the broader society or in prisons. And

679
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: it seems to me that also happens in Iran, and

680
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: you have some heroic characters. I had a little bit

681
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 1: of contact with them in past years. One Bijon I

682
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:09,919
Speaker 1: don't know how to pronounce his last name, and then

683
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,879
Speaker 1: and then the two doctor brothers to say a little

684
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: bit about something, the role that they play and who

685
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 1: their allies are, and really getting harm reduction going and

686
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: ultimately embraced by some of the more theocratic leaders within Iran. Yeah,

687
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: I mean the sertain harm reduction is is the multilayered one.

688
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: So they were different actors, some of whom, of course

689
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: you met, but there were many others as well. Some

690
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 1: of them, you know, operated below the radar, as I

691
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: say in my books. Some of them were within the

692
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: government teams itself, you know. So you had policymakers and

693
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 1: lawmakers that were persuaded that, of course, at the time

694
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: they existing laws were really harming public health for the

695
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:56,680
Speaker 1: general population, not only for drug use. So they embraced

696
00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 1: harm reduction basically, as one of my interlocutives said, lights off,

697
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:05,359
Speaker 1: so like driving lights off. So they started implementing, you know,

698
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: sort of programs. This is early two thousand's, so a

699
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 1: few years before I run legalizes harm reduction in two

700
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 1: thousand five, and so you have this sort of alliance

701
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 1: between people in government and geo's so civic society groups

702
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 1: and drug uses sort of pressure groups and the epidemic,

703
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:30,960
Speaker 1: which is the contextual event that kind of puts pressure

704
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: on everyone. And at the same time you also had

705
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 1: ahead of judiciary and he was he was an Ayatolla himself,

706
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: who who very conservative, you know, not prone to you know,

707
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: sort of liberalizing ideas or things like that. He's convinced

708
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 1: after a few meetings with high ranking people in the

709
00:46:56,239 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: in the public institutions to adopt harm reduction. I mean,

710
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 1: there was sort of negotiations between those who were working

711
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:08,760
Speaker 1: on the ground and implementing sort of informal harm reduction

712
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: policies and interventions and people in government who basically conveyed

713
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 1: the ideas and the practices that were put in place

714
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 1: to those who could actually you know, change the law.

715
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 1: But I think the even more extraordinary event is not

716
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 1: simply a the run adopted harm reduction, but it's the

717
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: scale of the programs that were adopted. So in the

718
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:33,359
Speaker 1: method of you know, a few years, I mean by

719
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: two thousand tents, So in five years, Iran adopted method

720
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: on maintenance programs, and then introduced needle exchange programs, and

721
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: then later introduced opium tincture which is basically delivative of opium,

722
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 1: so that the actually illicit drug and two hundreds of

723
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,240
Speaker 1: thousands of people, you know, the methodon program in Iran,

724
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 1: together with the programorphine program, which is slightly smaller, you know,

725
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:05,719
Speaker 1: may have more than a million. I mean, if you

726
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:08,439
Speaker 1: think about it, more than a million. I mean out

727
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 1: of a population of eighty three million, you're talking about

728
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 1: more than one and a hundred. I mean, the analogy

729
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 1: the United States would be is if three and a

730
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 1: half million people were on method Honor brupern orphane, which

731
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:22,000
Speaker 1: you know, we're nowhere close to that. I mean, it's

732
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:24,239
Speaker 1: a fraction of as so far as I'm aware. So

733
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: you're talking about a magnitude both of illicit drug you know,

734
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 1: addiction with regarding opioids, as well as treatment that probably

735
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,839
Speaker 1: is number one in the world. It is I think,

736
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not you know, sort of super keen

737
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:41,840
Speaker 1: and quantitative approaches, but I guess you know, if you

738
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 1: look at it in terms of ration be compared across

739
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 1: the world, I would be surprised if there's any other

740
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:52,040
Speaker 1: country that has such a huge scope of substitution programs,

741
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 1: and we might just you know, add that besides these

742
00:48:56,160 --> 00:49:00,880
Speaker 1: sort of vibrant, you know to harm reduction and maintenance

743
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 1: program that around put in place, there was an explosion

744
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:09,839
Speaker 1: of addiction treatment facilities, which of course it's much more

745
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 1: contentious than the harm reduction one because it is unregulated.

746
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: But it means that you know, a large portion of

747
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 1: the population and basically every single family in the country

748
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:26,880
Speaker 1: is either touched directly or indirectly by you know, the

749
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 1: drug the drug issue. Let's take a break here and

750
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:49,280
Speaker 1: go to an egg. So let me ask you about

751
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,279
Speaker 1: There's two moments you describe in the book a sort

752
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:55,719
Speaker 1: of shocks to the system. And the first one is

753
00:49:55,800 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 1: when the Tally Body leadership I think it's two thousand,

754
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 1: a year or two before the war in Afghanistan in

755
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 1: nine eleven UM basically declares that it's going to eradicate

756
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 1: opium in Afghanistan and more or less succeeds for a year.

757
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 1: And obviously, at this point Iran is perhaps the biggest

758
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:20,160
Speaker 1: market for Afghani opium in the world. So there's suddenly

759
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 1: a major shortage in Iran. Prices going up, availability going down.

760
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:29,240
Speaker 1: What impact does that have on not just the Iranian

761
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: drug problem but Iradian governmental thinking about how to deal

762
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:36,359
Speaker 1: with the drug problem. Yeah, and again I think, yeah,

763
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 1: that that was like really incredible moment. I think, you know,

764
00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 1: in Afghan history and you know in global drug history,

765
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:47,360
Speaker 1: the Taliban put the band the first time basically Afghanistan

766
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 1: managers to eradicate the poppy. We don't know whether that

767
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:54,279
Speaker 1: was an expedient to increase the prices or it was

768
00:50:54,360 --> 00:50:59,280
Speaker 1: actually done, uh, to eradicate the poppy from from the country.

769
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: But in ir and there is you know, widespread panic

770
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: with the country having let's say on top of one

771
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,360
Speaker 1: or two million opium uses. It meant that, you know,

772
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:13,839
Speaker 1: lack of supply. It didn't mean that people would give

773
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 1: up the habit. It meant that people would adopt more

774
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: dangerous drug using behaviors, mostly shifting from opium to heroin

775
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 1: or to adulterated substances. And that's what exactly happened actually

776
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:32,400
Speaker 1: in in the ear two thousand, some of the running

777
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:38,799
Speaker 1: officials at that time started contemplating introducing poplic cultivation in

778
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: Iran to bring exactly exactly by basically saying, okay, you know,

779
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:48,440
Speaker 1: the situation is this. You know, the afghan is not

780
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 1: gonna send us opum anymore, and our people will need

781
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: opium because you know, we have a large part of

782
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:57,279
Speaker 1: the population who uses it on a daily basis, and

783
00:51:57,360 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 1: we need to provide them with that. It's either recalled

784
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: debate the poppy or introduced method. These were the two options.

785
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:08,240
Speaker 1: This was quite outspoken and to set an extent actually

786
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: radical reformer within public institutions. And there was also I

787
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:16,359
Speaker 1: think you describe a brief consideration of offering to Afghanistan

788
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:21,000
Speaker 1: to buy their opium crossing and use that to supply Yeah,

789
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:24,200
Speaker 1: and that doesn't where obviously, of course it didn't get

790
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 1: anywhere also because it ran in Afghanistan. So the Islamic

791
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 1: Republic has been probably the staunchest enemy of the Taliban regime.

792
00:52:33,320 --> 00:52:35,959
Speaker 1: You know, while in the eighties, you know, the US

793
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 1: was supporting the Taliban against the Soviets, Iran was fighting them,

794
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,400
Speaker 1: and then they came very close to you know, a

795
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: sort of hot war situation in the nineties. M Now

796
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:52,800
Speaker 1: you describe a second shock to the system ten years later,

797
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:55,839
Speaker 1: right when basically I think it's when when the sort

798
00:52:55,840 --> 00:53:01,360
Speaker 1: of populist, authoritarian minded president Ahmadinejad Um is re elected

799
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:04,200
Speaker 1: in a controversial election, and there's the Green movement, and

800
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:07,759
Speaker 1: then there's a crackdown, and you describe a sort of

801
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 1: growing demoralization happening. Not I mean it already precedes that,

802
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:15,359
Speaker 1: but even gets escalated as a result. And you see

803
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 1: major change is happening in a ranging society, a big

804
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: drop in the birth rate, the age of marriage increasing,

805
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:26,360
Speaker 1: premarital sex going up tenfold, increase in in sexually transmitted

806
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 1: diseases UM. At the same time, you know, there had

807
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 1: been a growing kind of modern population happening in may

808
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:34,520
Speaker 1: Ran that was hooked into consumers and all this sort

809
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:37,240
Speaker 1: of thing. So you have this other kind of broader

810
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:41,279
Speaker 1: cultural shock. But in the midst of this, this populist

811
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 1: leader Um, who you know in the US has seen

812
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 1: in a very very negative light because of many of

813
00:53:46,640 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: his international policies and declarations. Nonetheless, kind of doubles down

814
00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:55,320
Speaker 1: on harm reduction. I mean, he steps into the shoes

815
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:57,920
Speaker 1: of a previous president Khatami, who had been a reform

816
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:00,800
Speaker 1: minded one who was sort of helped move this stuff forward.

817
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 1: But what you would have might have expected Ahmadinajad as

818
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:07,879
Speaker 1: a more populist authoritarian figure to do and cracking down.

819
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 1: He does the opposite. And is that basically just because

820
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 1: the problem is so monumental? Is it because he has

821
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:19,440
Speaker 1: the support of the religious authorities and of Amy. What's

822
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:22,640
Speaker 1: going on with that? Yeah? I think, you know, sort

823
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 1: of coming to power of ahmadina Jad is a very

824
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:32,719
Speaker 1: interesting moment in modern Iran. In history and as a

825
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 1: political figure. He's probably the least understood of old uh

826
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 1: and the and the most difficult to understand. I mean,

827
00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:43,840
Speaker 1: of course, a clear populist before populism became the rule

828
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 1: around the world, I mean in contemporary times, very very

829
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 1: radical in his public speaking, but also completely unorthodox, including

830
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:58,799
Speaker 1: for a run. You know, let's remember the ahmadina Ja

831
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 1: compared to his pre the celtsors. He was not a

832
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: religious figure. He was not a cleric. The most Iranian

833
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:09,319
Speaker 1: presidents have been coming from the clerical establishment. He was,

834
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 1: you know, an ordinary man, an engineer, was elected on

835
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:19,400
Speaker 1: the populist platform with very religious, extreme religious ideas. But

836
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: because of his heterodoxy really in politics and religion, he

837
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:29,279
Speaker 1: was not really scared to adopt positions that were at

838
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:32,840
Speaker 1: odds with the religious establishment or with you know, with

839
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 1: the political establishment of world uh. For him, the harm

840
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 1: reduction issue didn't really represent the problem, but rather an opportunity.

841
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:44,920
Speaker 1: What happened in those years is that harm reduction is expanded,

842
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 1: maintenance programs are expanded, the private sector jumps in and

843
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:54,800
Speaker 1: provides the majority of method and substitution programs in Iran,

844
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:58,280
Speaker 1: and there is the whole world of treatment of addiction

845
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:01,759
Speaker 1: that explodes. As the said earlier, partly also you know,

846
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:07,840
Speaker 1: supported by ahmadinejab himself, who you know attended narcotics anonymous meetings,

847
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:11,200
Speaker 1: you know they you know, he was very much outspoken

848
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:16,399
Speaker 1: about the need of treating addiction in Iran. Well, it's

849
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:19,080
Speaker 1: also dramatic contrast with if you look at say kal

850
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:21,920
Speaker 1: Khali in the early years of the revolution early eighties,

851
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: who is all about shaming drug users. You describe a

852
00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 1: scene where where Akhmadenija actually is in a stadium of

853
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:32,759
Speaker 1: twenty thousand former drug users and describing himself as their

854
00:56:32,840 --> 00:56:36,120
Speaker 1: brother who is committed to their recovery. So I mean,

855
00:56:36,120 --> 00:56:39,680
Speaker 1: that was, I mean, really quite something. Although it's also

856
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:42,319
Speaker 1: interesting because there's a period also I don't know if

857
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: it's when he becomes president. But some of the pioneers

858
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 1: of harm reduction who were more outspoken, so I mentioned

859
00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:51,880
Speaker 1: before the brothers Kami Areas Alayi. I'm not sure if

860
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:55,160
Speaker 1: we're not going to name right or Bijan Nasermanesh Right,

861
00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:57,680
Speaker 1: those guys and some of others like them, they are

862
00:56:57,719 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 1: either forced to flee the country or there are rested,

863
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:03,279
Speaker 1: they're sent to prison. Um. They're the ones who are

864
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:05,719
Speaker 1: kind of more out there, They're a little more connected

865
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:08,760
Speaker 1: with the West, and so there's a sense of kind

866
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:11,400
Speaker 1: of um suppressing. UM. I don't and I don't know

867
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:14,279
Speaker 1: the exact stories in these cases, but I really kind

868
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:19,360
Speaker 1: of you know, the pioneers being really knocked down and

869
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:22,560
Speaker 1: really hurt badly, while at the same time the government's

870
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 1: embracing the policies that they had pioneered. Absolutely. I mean,

871
00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 1: you know, there is no doubt that these years, I

872
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: mean the years uh during which Ahmadina that comes to power,

873
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:38,720
Speaker 1: you know, witness and secretization of of civil society groups,

874
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:42,440
Speaker 1: particularly those groups that have a connection with the West

875
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:47,040
Speaker 1: and the United States in particular. So all sort of

876
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 1: drug policy reforments, harm reduction is that had been you know,

877
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:56,720
Speaker 1: sort of establishing networks of collaboration and support with the

878
00:57:56,760 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 1: outside world are put under pressure on the scrutiny. There

879
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:08,120
Speaker 1: is absolute distrust towards foreign governments, Western governments particularly, and

880
00:58:08,200 --> 00:58:12,240
Speaker 1: so people who had connections with the outside world, you know,

881
00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:14,480
Speaker 1: they decide to leave or you know, they go to

882
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:16,880
Speaker 1: jail and then they leave, which is the case of

883
00:58:16,920 --> 00:58:19,560
Speaker 1: the people you mentioned and you know, of course, and

884
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 1: that's been the story since then. You know, most sort

885
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:27,960
Speaker 1: of social activists working on contentious issues, not all you know,

886
00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 1: harm reduction is went to jail, and some of the

887
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 1: most connected to the outside world. You know, we're affected.

888
00:58:35,600 --> 00:58:41,240
Speaker 1: The field and in Iran is very very vibrant and active,

889
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:46,800
Speaker 1: and the number of organizations is expanding. And some of

890
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:50,440
Speaker 1: these people left, but many remained and you know kept working.

891
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:52,880
Speaker 1: Of course, the conditions changed as well, and so they

892
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:57,640
Speaker 1: were careful not to kind of pass the red lines.

893
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 1: The problem is no the red men, right must you

894
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 1: mentioned before narcotics anonymous and that must be surprising to

895
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:08,720
Speaker 1: our audience because you know, reading your book, I mean

896
00:59:08,840 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 1: arconics anonymous and even some alcoholics anonymous chapters emerging Iran.

897
00:59:13,240 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 1: You know, the clerical authorities are initially wary and suspicious

898
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: of them, but ultimately embrace them. And you described Narcotics

899
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:24,560
Speaker 1: Anonymous becoming one of the largest kind of non governmental

900
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:28,480
Speaker 1: organizations solicite organizations in the country and having an associated

901
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:33,040
Speaker 1: nonprofit that becomes enormously influential. So part of my question

902
00:59:33,120 --> 00:59:36,880
Speaker 1: is to explain how and why Narcotics Anonymous emerges to

903
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:39,760
Speaker 1: be perhaps the bigger in Iran anywhere else in the world.

904
00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:43,640
Speaker 1: And then secondly, how much of this is connected, um

905
00:59:43,680 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 1: to you know, the growing use of meth amphetamine. And

906
00:59:47,440 --> 00:59:49,600
Speaker 1: then obviously there's I really I'm throwing a third thing

907
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:51,080
Speaker 1: here at you because we're running out of time and

908
00:59:51,080 --> 00:59:54,920
Speaker 1: there's so much here. The dramatic growth in these treatment camps,

909
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:57,840
Speaker 1: which you see also in East Asia of hundreds of

910
00:59:57,840 --> 01:00:00,600
Speaker 1: thousands of people sit being sent to quad like prison

911
01:00:00,680 --> 01:00:04,080
Speaker 1: like environments. Um many of them private, some of them

912
01:00:04,120 --> 01:00:07,320
Speaker 1: government run, which are not prisons but are sort of

913
01:00:07,360 --> 01:00:10,240
Speaker 1: prisons where people are expected to get clean quote unquote

914
01:00:10,240 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 1: before they can get out. So a whole bunch right there.

915
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:15,400
Speaker 1: But pick them off whether you want to sart off

916
01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:17,760
Speaker 1: with the Narcotics Anonymous question or the next question, which

917
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:21,120
Speaker 1: everyone you think makes more sense. So the ruse of

918
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:27,400
Speaker 1: narcotic anonymous is spectacular and completely surprising as many of

919
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 1: the events that kind of happened in the history of

920
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:34,240
Speaker 1: drugs in i Run. I believe that, you know, something

921
01:00:35,040 --> 01:00:40,200
Speaker 1: exceptional happened. They're basically a sort of coalescing of synergies.

922
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:45,080
Speaker 1: Narcotics Anonymous basically established in Irun at the end of

923
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:48,120
Speaker 1: the nineties, and so this is a period of course

924
01:00:48,120 --> 01:00:52,280
Speaker 1: of great changes in in the sort of world of

925
01:00:52,360 --> 01:00:55,959
Speaker 1: drugs in Irun. You know, uh, you know, we're talking

926
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:59,760
Speaker 1: about the post war period. As we mentioned earlier, people

927
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:03,000
Speaker 1: can going back from the front having lots of substance

928
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:07,280
Speaker 1: abuse problems and not finding much support in the sort

929
01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:10,920
Speaker 1: of civil society organizations that at the time we're not

930
01:01:11,040 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 1: still that active or in the public health sector, and

931
01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:18,680
Speaker 1: so the self health groups emerge as a way to

932
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:23,360
Speaker 1: sub define the identity of people with substance abuse problems

933
01:01:24,160 --> 01:01:29,000
Speaker 1: in Iran without being stigmatized. Initially, the government is very suspicious,

934
01:01:29,480 --> 01:01:32,440
Speaker 1: mostly because of course naconics anonymous have this sort of

935
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 1: confession style which is seen, as you know, derived from

936
01:01:35,880 --> 01:01:39,840
Speaker 1: Catholyticism in the in the view of the Iranian sort

937
01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: of religious leaders mostly but then eventually through negotiations and

938
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:49,480
Speaker 1: an understanding of the role that Narcotics Anonymous can have

939
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:54,200
Speaker 1: within the system of intervention on addiction. It is fully

940
01:01:54,200 --> 01:01:59,760
Speaker 1: embraced and the number of sort of meetings is really incredible.

941
01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:02,720
Speaker 1: I mean, it's my current project actually deals with with

942
01:02:02,840 --> 01:02:06,080
Speaker 1: Narcotics Anonymous, and I can tell you that, you know,

943
01:02:06,200 --> 01:02:09,520
Speaker 1: like the whole thing has been ranized and has become

944
01:02:09,560 --> 01:02:13,720
Speaker 1: a different thing from Narcotics Anonymous elsewhere, mostly because the

945
01:02:13,720 --> 01:02:17,840
Speaker 1: people participating bring their own cultural baggage and the cold

946
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:23,080
Speaker 1: cultural understanding of the world and of addiction. So it

947
01:02:23,160 --> 01:02:28,120
Speaker 1: is not really an exclusively related to the rise of methamphetamines. Actually,

948
01:02:28,160 --> 01:02:31,480
Speaker 1: I would say that, you know, many of the people

949
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:37,960
Speaker 1: coming to the meetings of Narcotics Anonymous have a background

950
01:02:38,040 --> 01:02:43,960
Speaker 1: in opium or heroin abuse. Most methamphetamine users tend not

951
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 1: to attend any meetings. There are other groups that compete

952
01:02:49,200 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 1: with any by the way, and they are not probably

953
01:02:52,040 --> 01:02:56,160
Speaker 1: as popular, but they are there. They're very much active.

954
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:59,520
Speaker 1: So it's a whole world that of Narcotics Anonymous, and

955
01:02:59,560 --> 01:03:03,920
Speaker 1: it's you know, cultural reach goes beyond the issue of addiction.

956
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:07,320
Speaker 1: And you can see that you know, iran and films

957
01:03:07,320 --> 01:03:12,360
Speaker 1: and cinema refers to you know, the issue of narcotics anonymous. Uh,

958
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:15,520
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's becoming a thing I can tell you.

959
01:03:16,160 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 1: And this connects also to your last question about churchment sentence.

960
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:23,160
Speaker 1: And most of these treatment centers adopt a sort of

961
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:25,959
Speaker 1: twelve step program and so they are sort of under

962
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:30,680
Speaker 1: the patronage of an a Iran. The phenomenon is huge.

963
01:03:31,520 --> 01:03:34,440
Speaker 1: It's difficult to speak about it in in in in

964
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 1: simple terms or just by you know, giving you a

965
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:41,520
Speaker 1: paragraph of response, because you have all sorts of treatment facilities,

966
01:03:41,520 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: from the ones you mentioned which adopt very violent and

967
01:03:44,400 --> 01:03:50,160
Speaker 1: ruthless sort of interventions to uh, you know, sort of

968
01:03:50,320 --> 01:03:58,080
Speaker 1: compassionate sort of help for reenter interventions. But what is

969
01:03:58,520 --> 01:04:04,200
Speaker 1: sort of probably interesting to know is that these treatment

970
01:04:04,240 --> 01:04:08,080
Speaker 1: centers have come to occupy a social place in ordinary

971
01:04:08,160 --> 01:04:11,880
Speaker 1: life in Iran. And so the sort of sentence, oh,

972
01:04:12,040 --> 01:04:14,440
Speaker 1: I'll take you to the camp. The camp is the

973
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 1: word for the treatment center in person. Camp like the

974
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:21,360
Speaker 1: English camp, but you know, with the positive meaning if

975
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:26,440
Speaker 1: you want, has become ordinarily in everyday language. So you know,

976
01:04:26,640 --> 01:04:29,000
Speaker 1: just to give you an idea of how you know,

977
01:04:29,600 --> 01:04:34,120
Speaker 1: this phenomenon is central to today's life. So as you

978
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:36,440
Speaker 1: get to the end of the book, you describe a

979
01:04:36,520 --> 01:04:41,480
Speaker 1: period I think it's around sixteen where there's even conversations

980
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:44,560
Speaker 1: going on about things like opening up a safe injection

981
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:49,439
Speaker 1: site in Tehran, maybe a heroin maintenance program, some consideration

982
01:04:49,520 --> 01:04:54,200
Speaker 1: of further decriminalization of possession, even discussions of maybe trying

983
01:04:54,200 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 1: to legally regulate the opium and cannabis cultivation and distribution. First,

984
01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:03,640
Speaker 1: it was remarkable that those conversations are happening, and I'm

985
01:05:03,680 --> 01:05:06,800
Speaker 1: wondering um mazier to bring it up to date, and

986
01:05:06,960 --> 01:05:09,800
Speaker 1: especially given the election last year of a quite conservative

987
01:05:10,080 --> 01:05:13,880
Speaker 1: president in Iran, what's happening now? Are any of these

988
01:05:13,920 --> 01:05:16,800
Speaker 1: things moving forward? Have some of them actually happened or

989
01:05:17,040 --> 01:05:20,040
Speaker 1: things in a much more quieter or more repressive phase

990
01:05:20,160 --> 01:05:24,320
Speaker 1: right now. The thing is that sort of I was

991
01:05:24,400 --> 01:05:29,480
Speaker 1: expecting some change, or perhaps I was hopeful. That's from

992
01:05:29,520 --> 01:05:33,080
Speaker 1: the date of publication of my book two thousand nineteen. Today,

993
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:36,560
Speaker 1: you know, we would have had probably the first safe

994
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:40,040
Speaker 1: injection room and that didn't happen, but the proposals have

995
01:05:40,120 --> 01:05:43,160
Speaker 1: been moved to an assessment stage, so you know, perhaps

996
01:05:43,240 --> 01:05:46,160
Speaker 1: it would take another couple of years, five years who knows,

997
01:05:46,280 --> 01:05:50,200
Speaker 1: depending on you know, also how the world politics develops,

998
01:05:50,200 --> 01:05:53,520
Speaker 1: and that affects a lot of dissipation in Iran. Not

999
01:05:53,680 --> 01:05:57,400
Speaker 1: an easy time. I would say safe injection might be

1000
01:05:57,560 --> 01:06:03,920
Speaker 1: might be introduced, more artful about herroing so to prescription programs.

1001
01:06:04,400 --> 01:06:08,640
Speaker 1: But they did this sort of election of vacy to

1002
01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:12,560
Speaker 1: the presidency. It gives even more influence to the whole

1003
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:17,200
Speaker 1: judiciary security apparatus in Iran. That means that in a way,

1004
01:06:17,280 --> 01:06:21,000
Speaker 1: those who were always skeptical about drug policy reform are

1005
01:06:21,040 --> 01:06:26,360
Speaker 1: in charge. It is not necessarily a negative thing because

1006
01:06:26,480 --> 01:06:29,920
Speaker 1: we have seen in history of drug policy that often

1007
01:06:29,960 --> 01:06:33,520
Speaker 1: it is conservative governments, you know that take the bolder

1008
01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:37,400
Speaker 1: action simply because it's harder to criticize them or to

1009
01:06:37,440 --> 01:06:40,160
Speaker 1: accuse them of being you know, soft on crime or

1010
01:06:40,160 --> 01:06:44,080
Speaker 1: soft on drugs. But so far there is little interest

1011
01:06:44,280 --> 01:06:48,560
Speaker 1: and the sort of main focus has been that of

1012
01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:56,120
Speaker 1: living addiction treatment sentence to interview more broadly and to

1013
01:06:56,240 --> 01:06:59,040
Speaker 1: go through sort of self have groups and what they

1014
01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:06,960
Speaker 1: call detoxification programs, so you know, non pharmaceutical interventions. Mm hmm. Well, masire, listening,

1015
01:07:07,040 --> 01:07:09,400
Speaker 1: I so much appreciate your taking the time to have

1016
01:07:09,480 --> 01:07:12,800
Speaker 1: this conversation. With me and for our audience. Your book

1017
01:07:13,000 --> 01:07:16,400
Speaker 1: is truly fascinating and I think for I think probably

1018
01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:18,760
Speaker 1: of all the episodes I've done, this has to be

1019
01:07:18,880 --> 01:07:21,200
Speaker 1: perhaps one of the most eye opening for even people

1020
01:07:21,200 --> 01:07:24,240
Speaker 1: are quite knowledgeable about drug policy around the world. So

1021
01:07:24,360 --> 01:07:28,520
Speaker 1: thank you for your scholarship and thank you for this conversation.

1022
01:07:29,280 --> 01:07:32,560
Speaker 1: Pleasure to talk to your Hope to see you soon. Yes,

1023
01:07:32,600 --> 01:07:39,200
Speaker 1: I hope so too. If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell

1024
01:07:39,240 --> 01:07:41,320
Speaker 1: your friends about it, or you can write us a

1025
01:07:41,320 --> 01:07:44,440
Speaker 1: review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

1026
01:07:44,800 --> 01:07:47,240
Speaker 1: We love to hear from our listeners. If you'd like

1027
01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:50,240
Speaker 1: to share your own stories, comments, and ideas, then leave

1028
01:07:50,320 --> 01:07:54,200
Speaker 1: us a message at one eight three three seven seven

1029
01:07:54,320 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: nine sixty that's eight three three psycho zero, or you

1030
01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:03,800
Speaker 1: can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com, or

1031
01:08:03,960 --> 01:08:07,160
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at Ethan Natalman. You can also

1032
01:08:07,200 --> 01:08:11,200
Speaker 1: find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is a

1033
01:08:11,200 --> 01:08:15,040
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted

1034
01:08:15,040 --> 01:08:18,840
Speaker 1: by me Ethan Naedelman. It's produced by Noam Osband and

1035
01:08:18,960 --> 01:08:23,160
Speaker 1: Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden Ari Handel,

1036
01:08:23,360 --> 01:08:27,559
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoma Pictures, Alex Williams

1037
01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:30,799
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick from My Heart Radio, and me Ethan Nadelman.

1038
01:08:31,200 --> 01:08:35,040
Speaker 1: Our music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks

1039
01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:49,120
Speaker 1: to A. Brios F. Bianca Grimshaw and Robert BP. Next

1040
01:08:49,160 --> 01:08:51,960
Speaker 1: week I'll be talking about the issue of psychedelics law,

1041
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:56,480
Speaker 1: especially the issue of patents and intellectual property with Graham Petenik,

1042
01:08:56,640 --> 01:09:00,960
Speaker 1: perhaps the leading attorneys specializing in this area, and sort

1043
01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:03,960
Speaker 1: of my thesis for starting my firm was that there

1044
01:09:03,960 --> 01:09:08,080
Speaker 1: were ways for smaller inventors to get involved with the

1045
01:09:08,080 --> 01:09:12,439
Speaker 1: patent system and to also use the patent system to

1046
01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:15,479
Speaker 1: keep off a company like a mon Santo or a

1047
01:09:15,479 --> 01:09:19,439
Speaker 1: Philip Morris from entering the cannabis space and sort of

1048
01:09:19,439 --> 01:09:23,120
Speaker 1: taking it over and dominating it. And so taking that

1049
01:09:23,680 --> 01:09:27,320
Speaker 1: kind of thinking through to the psychedelic space. I think

1050
01:09:27,360 --> 01:09:30,240
Speaker 1: that was part of the kind of fortune that let

1051
01:09:30,280 --> 01:09:35,160
Speaker 1: me see that there were these issues around pulocybin patenting

1052
01:09:35,240 --> 01:09:38,120
Speaker 1: for instance. Um, perhaps a bit earlier than you know,

1053
01:09:38,439 --> 01:09:42,160
Speaker 1: maybe some others did subscribe to Cycleactive now see it,

1054
01:09:42,160 --> 01:09:42,680
Speaker 1: don't miss it.