As an epidemiologist who has studied women who use drugs for decades, I have always wanted to accompany Kate Dolan on one of her trips to Iran for an insider’s experience. Beating Drug Addiction in Tehran invites the reader to do just that, and it taught me more than I expected. Dolan draws from her vast international experience, weaving together the history and epidemiology of drug use in Iran with a tapestry of incredible, heart-rending stories from Iranian women experiencing the darkest depths of addiction. She chronicles her unflagging efforts to give these women a chance at recovery, but ends up giving them something more: dignity and respect. For readers who thought that epidemiologists were just ‘bean counters’, you’re in for the shock of your lives.
In 2003, I was invited to deliver training on HIV to prison doctors in Iran. After the training, I was taken on a study tour of Iranian prisons. When I asked about women in prison, I was offered a chance to tour their wing within Evin Prison. I had accepted immediately. This was an environment that we see and hear nothing of in the West. To enter the female wing, I had to walk through several metal doors from the male wing. Inside, the walls were white with a pale blue trim. I had just visited eight prisons for men over the last ten days. But it was this visit—to a female prison in Iran—which would have a lasting effect on me. It changed my focus at work, my circle of friends and the way I viewed Iran and Islam. This prison in North West Tehran was newish, having been built in 1971.
It sat at the foot of the Alborz Mountains, which are covered in snow in winter. This was the first trip of many I would make to Iran over the next decade. The foyer of the women’s wing was clean like a hospital, sparse even. We walked down the corridor and there, on the right, was a cell. As we stood in the doorway, all the occupants turned away to hide, holding their chadors—long, flowing capes—up close under their chins. Each woman was wearing the same navy blue and white patterned chador, the prison-issue uniform. Some inmates had small children with them, and a few had babes in their arms. My visiting party comprised my interpreter, my guide, a prison guard and me.
