Common Causes of Drug Addiction in the Qajar Era and its Social Effects

Prevalencing of addiction among Iranian people in Qajar period can be considered as one of the social characteristics of that time. Different factors have played roles in increasing the addiction to opium among Qajar-age Iranians. The most important ones include the abundance and accessibility of this material, the wrong views of people, and the little medical information of physicians who prescribed opium for every illness. In addition, some psychological disorders originated from social knots and the common positive viewpoint to opium consuming played their roles in this procedure. Regarding the addictive feature of opium and its destructing nature, it has led to many negative effects on the Qajar-age society. The most significant of such problems included little work, forming some discourtesy environments, dissipation of families and selling the female members of the family as prostitutes to get money for buying opium. However, it is noteworthy that corroborating that the addiction has exerted a large impact on economy and social retardation in the Qajar age, is a difficult and somehow impossible task.