LONGER REVIEW: BEATING DRUG ADDICTION IN TEHRAN

An Australian professor of public health recounts the struggles of establishing and maintaining a women’s drug treatment clinic in Tehran in this debut memoir.

In the mid-1980s, Dr. Kate Dolan was co-founder of the Australian Prostitutes’ Collective and the Australian Drug Information Collective. She and her colleagues discussed ways to respond to the HIV epidemic, including a program for handing out free, sterile needles and syringes. In researching other countries’ similar programs, the author learned that a primary reason people shared syringes was because they were in prison. So when she traveled to Iran in the early 2000s to see its response to HIV, she toured the nation’s prisons and spoke with inmates. While Iran implemented “harm reduction” strategies for those taking drugs, Dolan noticed a neglected group—women. She set about starting a clinic in south Tehran to help women who used drugs. After several years of rejected funding requests, the clinic’s doors finally opened in 2007. The building’s highlight was the “safe room,” where clients could discuss difficulties frankly and remove their hijabs. As Dolan lived in Sydney and was raising twins, she only visited the clinic periodically. In this book, she focuses on four clients and their progress over a few years. Zahra, for example, was a pregnant teen trying to quit heroin. Dolan and the staff, as with most clients, fought for Zahra to continue treatment, but numerous issues impeded their efforts, like drug-using family members acting as enablers.

Dolan’s account treats Iran and its culture respectfully, noting intriguing differences without condemning any of them. For example, she was initially concerned about a midwife on the clinic’s staff, as this job in Iran concentrates on the expectant mother’s sexual health rather than aiding delivery. The author also adds personal touches, such as photographs, mostly from her days visiting prisons. In a particularly moving turn, she tells of returning home after an overseas trip only to be shaken by the tragic, sudden death of her partner, Margaret. While it’s understandable why Dolan, an Australian resident, didn’t step inside the Iranian clinic for the first two years, the lack of stories about the staff getting the facility off the ground is disappointing. Still, the author provides intriguing specifics about treatment, which predominantly involved methadone for those with heroin addictions. There were surprising hurdles as well, from the laborious process of securing money for the clinic to something as simple as the building’s electricity continually going out. Nevertheless, the latter half of the work becomes muddled. The timeline, for example, is confusing; at one point, Dolan had a chance to visit Iran again in 2012, then later it’s 2010 and, even later, 2009. Equally perplexing is Fariba, one of the four women the author spotlights. In a handful of scenes, details of her backstory repeatedly conflict, like her age when she first got married and the supposedly drug-free husband she ended up sharing opium with. But these missteps don’t mar Dolan’s unquestionable compassion, as she devoted years to helping others.

Despite some flaws, an absorbing look at treating women with drug addictions in Iran.