There is no doubt that alcohol consumption as a worldwide problem has contributed to millions of deaths and left considerably adverse impacts throughout a country as a causal factor in many diseases as well as a predecessor to injury and violence.
Iran, as an Islamic country, strictly follows the Islamic ban on alcohol, and as such is naturally ranked very low in WHO global status report on alcohol consumption.
Yet, the remarks made by the Iranian Deputy Health Minister Ali Akbar Sayyari on Saturday came as a surprise when he evaluated the country’s annual consumption of alcohol as high as 420 million liters.
The figure does not sound very logical when we take several factors into consideration. For one thing, the index for the world’s annual consumption of pure alcohol is stated in liters for people aged 15 years old and over. According to the report published by World Health Organization (WHO), the global status on annual alcohol consumption for people aged 15 and over is between six to seven liters, with countries such as Estonia, Austria, France, Ireland and Czech Republic ranking the highest with 12 liters per capita. Among Muslim countries, however, the amount of alcohol consumption is generally between 0.5 and 2.5 liters per capita. Given this fact, it only becomes natural to assume that the Islamic Republic of Iran with 98 percent of its population registered as Muslims, has at most the same ranking in alcohol consumption as any other Muslim country.
The official’s announced figure (420mn liter per year) puts the country’s alcohol consumption at over 8 liters which is two liters more than the global average. This does not seem very consistent with the country’s social realities and completely defies rational reasoning which follows the nation’s religious and cultural obligations as well as the fact that Iran has put a ban on producing, selling and buying liquor and alcohol consumption is considered a crime for Muslims.
The fact that Sayyari’s assessment puts Iran’s alcohol consumption 4 to 8 times higher than other Muslim countries and equates it with such countries as Armenia, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Greece and Mexico, hugely undermines the credibility of such estimation.
On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced in its 2014 report that the pure alcohol consumption among adults (age 15+) in liters per capita per year for Iran is slightly over one liter. This ratio is almost similar to that of other Muslim countries and equates to something around 52-55 million liters per year. Sayyari’s estimation actually shows a significant difference (8 times more) from WHO’s report.
Another factor to be considered is the confrontation by police which leads to the discovery of some 20 million liters of alcohol per year. It is generally said that the amount of consumption is three times more than what the police seizes, thus making the annual consumption estimated at approximately 60 million liters per year, almost equivalent to the figure announced by WHO. Furthermore, Iran’s former police chief had announced the number of alcoholics in the country something between 130,000 to 200,000 which is not consistent at all with the estimated 420 million liters of annual alcohol consumption in Iran.
This report does not intend to deny the fact that the amount of alcohol consumption in the country is worrisome and that Health Ministry and other concerned parties must follow up on the development and implementation of their policies in controlling the dangers posed by the harmful use of alcohol. Yet, in facing social issues, the unrealistic exaggeration of such problems can pose as much adverse impact on the society and challenge the area of policy-making as when denying the facts.
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