Due to recent history, Iran is often portrayed as a psychopathic, Islamist dictatorship that is determined to destroy America. The truth, however, is more nuanced than that. Death to America chants are undoubtedly commonplace, but despite this, President Obama has managed to achieve a historic nuclear deal with Iran. Progress is being made and tensions are slowly starting tease between Iran and the United States. While Iran is certainly making diplomatic progress, their internal human rights issues have not been addressed.
Iran isn't trying to destroy America, but they're still a religious theocracy (not as bad as Saudi Arabia, to be fair) where Islam and government frequently intertwine. However, despite the strong social conservatism, there is one exception: marijuana. Iran has a serious problem with drug addiction. The amount of drug addicts is estimated to be around 2 million people.
Drug dealers in Iran face harsh punishments that include the death penalty, but overall, Iran has fairly liberal policies towards drugs. These include distribution of clean needles for injecting addicts, methadone substitution programs and many other forms of treatment for addiction.
Nonetheless, it seems that Iran's drug policies could become even more progressive. Saeed Sefatian, head of the group on drug demand reduction for the Expediency Council, has recently proposed legalizing Marijuana and Opiates at a conference on drug addiction. This proposed alternative to Iran's already progressive would make the fight against drug addiction cheaper since Iranians are currently paying twice the money for the curent system. The Independent's gives a closer examination of all the details.
It's certainly confusing how a theocracy like Iran has been so progressive on the topic of drugs, but this raises a big question. Will this lead to other a more progressive surge in other areas of life for Iran. In a day of age of marijuana potentially becoming legal and Iranian models getting arrested for not wearing Hijabs, will a new culture war start? Will the general population overthrow the religious ruled government? Only time will tell.
