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Forbidden Drink: Why Alcoholism Is Soaring
in Officially Booze-Free Iran
29.6.2012
By Max Fisher - The Atlantic |
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Smugglers along the Iranian Kurdistan-Iraqi
Kurdistan border carry cases of liquor, vodka and
beer. Photo: AP. •
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With
a worsening economy, thriving black market, and
prohibition-enforced absence of social norms,
Iranians' heavy drinking may be turning into a
public health crisis.
June
29, 2012
The Islamic Republic of Iran takes its ban on
alcohol, which goes back to a few months after the
1979 revolution, so seriously that taking a drink
here can get you publicly whipped. Last week, one
Iranian couple, who had endured 80 lashes each on
their first and second alcohol convictions, got the
death sentence for their third.
But Iranians still drink. They drink smuggled booze
-- an estimated 60 to 80 million liters came over
the border last year alone, mostly from Iraqi
Kurdistan -- and they drink homemade booze, often
the ouzo-meets-moonshine aragh saghi, made from
raisins. They drink at home, drink at the corner
shops that double as clandestine liquor stores, and
apparently they drink behind the wheel: when Tehran
police administered random alcohol tests to city
drivers, a staggering 26 percent turned out to be
drunk.
So many Iranians drink to excess that health
officials there are now warning of a national threat
to public health, citing a spike in alcohol-related
ailments. Police are confiscating 69 percent more
alcohol than they did last year, according to an
Iranian newspaper.
"We should be sensitive about this issue and pay
attention to it even more than we do to other
ailments, such as diabetes or cardiovascular
diseases," Iran's deputy health minister said, a
statement that seems as much aimed at reactionary
hard-liners in the government as at regular
citizens. That an official would publicly
acknowledge the scale of the problem is, in itself,
a sign of the severity: police will crack down on
individuals but prefer not to admit how widespread
alcoholism has become, the BBC notes in reporting on
the announcement, because of how politically
sensitive the issue can be.
Why are Iranians such heavy drinkers? After all, not
only are they deterred by the lash, but they're
deeply religious: a 2008 Gallup poll found that
Iranians overwhelmingly support sharia law, which
forbids alcohol consumption. You might say that
there are three schools of thought: it's a way of
coping with the disastrous economy and politics, a
byproduct of the increasingly Westernized youth, or,
perhaps most convincingly, an indication of what
prohibition can mean for the social norms that
typically keep us from having a third shot before
lunchtime.
Could you really blame Iranians, who face
international isolation, a cruelly oppressive
regime, soaring food prices, and the threat of war,
for wanting an extra drink? "Personal reasons are
the most important factors which lead to the spread
of alcohol consumption in society," Iran's deputy
health minister said in his public statement on the
rise of alcoholism. "Some think this is a way [to
cope] with their frustrations." The head of Iran's
Social Work Society explained to Radio Liberty, "We
live in a society where there is economic pressure,
social problems, and high inflation. People escape
with alcohol to alleviate the pain."
Most Iranians are under 35, and anecdotal evidence
suggests that many of them, especially in cities,
are fond of Western culture and Western habits,
which includes imbibing. "In many of the country's
major cities, where residents listen to popular
music, use social media, and watch satellite
television -- all behind closed doors -- the black
market for booze continues to boom," Omed Memarian
wrote at the Daily Beast, calling the bottle another
front in the Iranian "culture war" over Western
influence.
Still, there seems to be something particular to
Iranian drinking habits -- the popularity of Western
culture might explain the presence of alcohol, and
the poor economy could be linked to the rising rates
of alcoholism, but neither fully explains how
Iranians drink. For that, the prohibition itself
might be to blame.
A 2006 travelogue from "the Inebriated Republic of
Iran" in Modern Drunkard magazine (not the most
rigorous source, to be sure, so I spoke with the
author to confirm his account) toured with some of
"underground boozers" who seem to be everywhere.
With "a wink and a nod," a copy store clerk becomes
bar tender, or a stranger becomes a drinking buddy.
The author, a Westerner who has reported form inside
Iran, explained to me that the prohibition can at
times lead Iranians to drink more heavily and with
more gusto for the secrecy and taboo of it. As he
put it in the 2006 article, written before the
Iranian economy got quite as bad as it is today,
"Where liquor stores are outlawed, everywhere is a
potential liquor store."
Alcohol consumption in Western countries is
moderated by laws, sure, but also by social norms
that regulate when it's OK to drink and how much.
But, in a country like Iran where drinking is always
illegal and always taboo, there's less of a
distinction between one drink and three, between
drinking at ten in the morning or ten at night,
before work or after work, at a restaurant or in the
back room of an office supply store that also sells
smuggled Turkish beers.
Whatever the reason, even as the Islamic Republic
forbids drinking, some of the regime's most
hard-line factions might be profiting from the
enormous black market trade. Analysts have long
suspected that the powerful,www.ekurd.net
shadowy Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps dominate
the lucrative smuggling routes in and out of Iran,
including the path across Iraqi Kurdistan, over
which most foreign booze flows.
"The relative ease of obtaining alcohol -- and the
vast quantities available -- have led many analysts
to believe that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and
other elements of the government actually profit
from the illicit trade, among other banned
industries," Memarian wrote, noting that an
apparently disapproving Iranian member of Parliament
had even hinted as much.
Memarian also quotes a Dubai-based exporter as
saying that most of the "huge" market for smuggling
alcohol into Iran goes through government hands.
Paradoxically, this is the same regime -- although
through different branches -- that, as part of a
nationwide crackdown on imbibing, sentenced two
Iranians to death for drinking. It's one of the many
contradictions of Iran's theocratic, authoritarian
rule over a devoutly Islamic, Western culture-loving
society. Just trying to puzzle it out is enough to
make you want a drink.
Max Fisher is an associate editor at The
Atlantic, where he edits the International channel.
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author or news agency,
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