Challenges of Substance Use Disorders in Iran: A Letter to the Editor

Substance use mortality data in most Middle Eastern countries are limited and under-recorded . Improving the quality and quantity of substance use mortality data in Middle Eastern countries is the key challenge in developing appropriate responses to substance use mortality, as well as availability, transparency, and integrity of substance use data across the region’s countries . According to the Iranian forensic medicine organization’s data, the mortality rate from opiate and psychotropic use in the whole country was 3.82 per 100,000 individuals between March 2015 and March 2016 . In Iran, drug and alcohol use disorders are considered a puzzle, andeach of the problems can be considered a piece of this puzzle; the items in the list are unordered and the numbers don’t represent priority.