The Issue of Opium in Reza Shah's Era: Addiction, Its Harmful Social Effects and Government's Solutions to the problem

The Issue of Opium in Reza Shah’s Era: Addiction، Its Harmful Social Effects and Government’s Solutions to the problem Simin Fasihi1 Farideh Farzi2 Received: 28/4/2014 Accepted: 26/10/2014 Abstract This article aims to investigate the issue of opium in the Iranian society during the reign of Reza Shah. Addiction to opium which became a big problem in this era، was a Safavid and Qajar heritage. At the end of the Safavid period، the production and consumption of opium increased in society and in the Qajar and Pahlavi eras its trade played an important role in the country’s economy. The expansion in the production and trade of opium for world markets in the Qajar era and its intensification in the Pahlavi period، provided easy access to this substance. Moreover، the misuse of opium as medication along with other domestic factors، increased its consumption in society and created a problem with many unfavorable consequences. This research is based on unpublished documents، newspapers، diaries and historical sources of this period and makes use of the descriptive- 1 Assistant Professor، Department of History، Alzahra University.