Why are drug addicts victims?

#1: This house believes that drug addicts are victims. In most cases, drug use is not a
conscious decision. PMC studies indicate that the prevalence of opium consumption is
rising in patients with chronic diseases, mostly those with less awareness of the
addictive properties and side effects of this substance. In addition, drug addiction is
caused by legal prescriptions. People who are given pain meds become dependent on
them. Those who become addicted are trapped in an endless cycle of drug use. Instead
of the government helping the people that they harmed, they then throw them in jail.
Opioid use and its dependence is one of the most serious health problems in Iran. It
was reported in Life extension magazine that those responsible for the opioid addiction
epidemic profit greatly from the FDA's approval and permitting of opioid prescription
drugs, and the FDA fuels this epidemic by approving lower-cost narcotics and hiding
how easy it is to become addicted or crave narcotics. When people are being deceived
they cannot act on their own self-ownership. The NIDA reports that 80 percent of heroin
users became addicted due to previous legally prescribed drug use.
#2 In most cases, drug use is not a willful decision. Think about those children who are
born addicted to drugs because their parents were. Think about the 84 million Iranians
live under the relative poverty line and 7 million children are deprived of education,
according to PMOI Iran News. HRB (Health Research Board) evidence shows the
majority of drug addicts attending treatment centers had very low educational
standards. As not everyone has access to proper education, some addicts often are
unaware whether these substances are legal or illegal, as well as their effects making
them the victims of this manipulative and powerful business. The Times of Israel
explains that Iranians are rarely even given access to drug rehab facilities, needle
exchanges, or drug education opportunities due to the fundamentalist nature of the
government. In addition, violence is an everyday occurrence in Iran’s rehab facilities,
according to an Observer, Shamila P. In 2014, health authorities reported that at least
39 people had died while in rehab.
(National Library of Medicine)/ PMC (PubMed Central)
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1104 people in Qazvin province, Iran.
Tehrani Banihashemi and his colleagues used TOHFLA method to evaluate health
literacy in Qazvin and 4 other provinces in Iran. They found out that overall health
literacy level in those provinces was low (56.6%). The study concludes that people with
less educational level were 5.7 times more probable to have inadequate drug literacy.

Is drug addiction really a choice?

(Brookdale Recovery) You actually think that when a person first starts taking drugs that
they are in the mindset to be thinking about breaking the law?
This possibility of drug use – entirely unwanted, but mixed with a bad set of
circumstances, as well as the science behind the drug’s influence on the brain – has
caused drug addiction no longer as a choice, but a disease. In recent decades,
researchers began to label addiction as a disease rather than a behavioral choice. This
decision stems primarily from how addiction affects the brain by changing it,
progressively forcing an individual to crave the drug until use eventually becomes an
unconscious act rather than a conscious choice.

So you think that drug addicts should be imprisoned?

However, according to PubMed Central, 68% of released prisoners are rearrested for
drug charges within three years of exiting prison. The treatment available to criminals is
often of poor quality or not suited to their needs, despite the principles for effective
treatment being the same as the general population. Most reports indicate that proper
addiction treatment can change individuals' beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes towards
substance abuse and help offenders successfully remove themselves from a life of drug
use. We need to recognize that the addict has to be seen as a drug dependent person
in need of proper help.
PubMed Central conducted interviews with former inmates and over half of the
participants (16/29) knew of someone who overdosed soon after release from prison,
and some had personally overdosed during previous releases from prison. The
immediate return to drug use described by some of the participants suggests that
despite prolonged periods of relative abstinence in prison, the pervasive environmental
stimuli and the re-entry context of poor social and family support, financial insecurity,
and inadequate housing experienced by former inmates with substance use disorders
encourage the return to drug use and heighten the risk of overdose. To lock someone
up is not always the right solution. We need to rehabilitate people, rather than punish
them for something which is out of their control.
According to BMC, after release from incarceration, resumption of substance use
carries risks, including parole revocation, exacerbation of mental health conditions,
transmission of infectious diseases, and drug overdose. Those who receive treatment
for substance use disorders are far less likely to commit crimes, face re-arrest and trial
costs, and are more likely to become productive citizens.

(“Life on Drugs in Iran: Between Prison and Rehab” by Nahid Anaraki)

According to Ghiabi, despite several notifications of the state regarding the closure of
illegal camps nationwide, most treatment camps in Iran still do not have a license form
the Welfare Organization. However, families of those who use drugs usually prefer to
call the illegal camps’ personnel instead of the police to collect family member who use
substances from their home and transport them to the camp sites for treatment, even if
this involved violence and beatings, since the alternative involves criminal charges and
dishonorable consequences in the community and neighborhood.

Some did not receive even basic support from their parents. Their unengaged families,
characterized by weak monitoring skills pushed them to use illicit drugs. The
participants suffered from the unresponsiveness and unsupportiveness of their parents.
Some of the participants began using drugs to alleviate anxiety and chronic pain; drugs
were offered to them to ease physical, mental, emotional, and psychological pain.
According to Khadije, she always suffered from chronic pain and because of the
availability, common use of drugs in their family, and price of heroin, she began to use
heroin to relieve pain.