Coordination, cooperation, and creativity within harm reduction networks in Iran: COVID-19 prevention and control among people who use drugs.

An unprecedented public health crisis confronts the world. Iran is among the hardest-hit countries, where effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are stretched across society and felt by the most marginalised people. Among people who use drugs, a comprehensive response to the crisis calls for broad collaboration, coordination, and creativity involving multiple government and non-government organisations. This commentary provides early insights into an unfolding experience, demonstrating the operational and policy impact of an initiative, bringing together a diverse array of harm reduction stakeholders to address the pandemic. In the context of lived experiences of social and economic marginalization, this initiative intends to lead efforts in developing an equitable response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Economic Sanctions Against Iran, and Drug Use in Tehran, Iran: A 2013 Pilot Study.

This qualitative study was conducted in 2013 among male drug user patients referred to Drop-In Centers (n = 23) and Residential Treatment Centers (n = 25) in Tehran. The results show that when the price of drugs increases, some drug users tend to use cheaper drugs, which are more harmful, use more harmful routes of administration, such as injecting drugs, sharing needles, and make money illegally. Economic sanctions have threatened Iranian people's economic status since 2006 and have become more intense in 2010 and 2011. As an important consequence of these economic sanctions, the price of drugs, as well as other goods and services, have increased in Iran in recent years. Given these "big economic events," big changes in the patterns of drug use, and an increase in drug use-related harms, can be expected to occur in the near future.