Despite the total ban imposed by the 1979 Revolution, the Islamic Republic is experiencing a boom in the illegal trade in alcoholic beverages. With smuggling, the risk of adulteration increases. In recent weeks there were dozens of victims. The reformers call for tackling the problem following the “controlled” model of the United Arab Emirates but the conservatives refuse to open up.
Tehran ( / Agencies) – The Iranian authorities are under pressure from public opinion after the increase in cases of poisoning due to the consumption of alcoholic beverages, which are illegal in the country.
In the last month, numerous episodes of this type were registered in different parts of the national territory: according to official reports, in the province of Alborz, near Tehran, between June 13 and 23 there were 191 cases of intoxication, which left a balance of 17 dead. A police official said on June 26 that three people were killed in the northern province of Mazandaran. Another 34 cases of poisoning were reported in the southern province of Hormozgan and 29 in Qazvin.
Faced with this situation, the police react by making arrests, but deny that these are cases of “serial poisonings”, as happened with the wave of poisonings among students a few months ago. “Consumers are the real culprits,” police chief Ahmad Reza Radan said.
The cases reopen the debate on the ban on alcohol in Iran – reports the independent site Anwaj. The measure was decreed after the Islamic revolution of 1979. However, a market for clandestinely produced local alcoholic beverages operates outside the law. All this makes it easier for adulterations to be committed.
Last year the fundamentalist newspaper farhikhtegan He had estimated the illegal market for alcoholic beverages, yielding an astronomical figure in rials: it would be equivalent to some 2.240 million dollars.
According to the director of Iran’s Forensic Medicine Organization, Abbas Masjedi Arani, alcohol poisoning claimed the lives of 644 people in the last Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20. Arani added that the figure represents a 30% increase over the previous year.
In this context, the tweet published a few days ago by Abdolreza Davari, former adviser to former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, unleashed a roar: he asked the government to legalize and supervise the sale of alcohol in the country. Citing the policy adopted by the United Arab Emirates as an example, Davari argues that this step would help eliminate the “black market” for alcohol and provide the government with a source of revenue.
The idea was immediately rejected by the conservative media close to the current president Ebrahim Raisi.
