In squalid back-alley Tehran, a doorway to the underworld.
A quick fix for boredom; an escape from the stresses of poverty, joblessness; the vortex of hopelessness.
UPSOT Ramin: (voiceover)
"I have no hope in my life any more."
UPSOT Majid: (voiceover)
"I've tried to kill myself... twice. Unfort unately I'm still here."
An addict died of an overdose in here the previous night. It happens almost every night.
So, just how is this Islamic Republic run by puritan clerics dealing with the world's biggest drug problem? Zero-tolerance?
Well, prepare to be surprised.
UPSOT MUSIC
Iran has the highest heroin addiction rate on the planet. No other country even comes close.
Hundreds of tonnes of drugs flood in from next-door Afghanistan, most en route to Europe. The Iranian government admits to three-and-a-half-million addicts among its 75 million people.
NEEDLE-STREWN FLOOR
One in three has HIV / AIDS and 90 per cent have Hepatitus C, an even more deadly disease. Needle-sharing is to blame.
At 21, Ramin, on the left: an addict for five years. Majid, his pusher: 20 years an addict.
Ramin says he's feeling great now that he's shot up. Asked how he felt before, he says, he felt awful.
SYNC Majid (voiceover):
"We've got no money. I hate people."
SYNC Ramin (voiceover):
"No one likes us in this world."
Ramin's a thief; in Iran, like everywhere else, drugs and crime inextricably linked.
RAMIN VOICEOVER
"I break into apartment buildings, start at the top floor and work my way down, stealing all the nice shoes people leave at their front doors."
MAJID VOICEOVER
"Not everyone stoops that low. Some of us make money by selling heroin -- as well as shooting it."
Mohammad was a heroin addict for 12 years, now he's been clean for one. He's on a mission to help get others off the drug.
Every morning, accompanied by another ex-addict, Morteza, he heads to where they used to shoot up.
They're mobbed by addicts who come for the handouts of syringes and clean needles.
Amazingly, this is all officially sanctioned -- and subsidised -- by a government which just a few years ago used to execute addicts.
SYNC
"Ibrahim" addict
"What these guys have been doing has been really effective. The needle exchange program has massively brought down the number of HIV and AIDS cases around here."
Morteza and Mohammad provide medical care for the addicts; and dispense advice and clean equipment.
UPSOT
MOHAMMAD
The United Nations now praises Iran's "enlightened" approach; a far more pragmatic, progressive drugs policy than America's -- and this from a regime the West brands conservative.
Mohammad now takes methadone -- a synthetic heroin substitute; a medical surrogate. The methadone programme's backed and funded by government policy; addicts treated as patients, not criminals.
UPSOT
MOHAMMAD
"Methadone is a kind of pill that keeps you away from drugs. And even if the police stop you they can't lock you up."
The police actually turned up as the addicts had gathered and the camera was rolling. No problem though. It's all above board.
SYNC
MOHAMMAD
"I think methadone is a miracle. I used to inject seven grams of heroin a day. I'd line up five syringes next to each other, stick the needle in my arm and as soon as it was finished I'd stick another one in."
Mohammad used to steal from his mum. Methadone has radically transformed their relationship.
SYNC
ZIBA, MOHAMMAD'S MOTHER
"He leads a healthy life now. He wakes up every morning, takes a shower and even makes his own breakfast. I'm just so happy for him."
Mohammad unhooked himself from what in Persian they just call "gard" -- or "powder" -- through Tehran's Persepolis Centre -- which now attracts hundreds of addicts.
SYNC
Bijan Nasirimanesh
Director, Persepolis Centre
"Patients who come here switch from intravenous addiction to methadone treatment and they also get counselling here."
Bijan Nasirimanesh, a doctor by training, first set up in a trailer; three years on and he's got three separate compounds in the capital.
Methadone doesn't produce a euphoric hit among users -- but it does banish the cravings that go with heroin; a single dose lasts up to a day and a half,
and it's swallowed, not injected -- so the risk of catching HIV or Hep C's almost zero. At Persepolis Centre they grind down the pills so the patients can't sell the methadone on the street.
"Yasmin"
Methadone patient
"You feel normal when you take meth. It's like you've never taken drugs and you're a normal person."
The methadone out-patient and detox centres are being talked up by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose liberal drugs policy's earning him newfound respect. Back in the days of Ayatollah Khomeini, possession of even two grams of heroin was a capital offense.
SYNC
Bija n Nasirimanesh
Director, Persepolis Centre
"Contrary to what people think about the current government, that it's more conservative and fundamentalist, it supports our program much more than previous governments. When President Ahmadi Nejad was the mayor of Tehran he ordered the city authorities to build 40 drop-in centres. And now that he's become the president, he always talks about methadone treatment and is open quite open about Iran's drug problem."
It may be that the Iranian government just realised that executing and locking up addicts wasn't working, but policy is now also driven by fear of a looming HIV epidemic.
This is a counselling session at the Persepolis Centre, led by Bijan's wife, Faranak.
Recently the methadone treatment programme was extend ed to prisons -- which is where most addicts catch HIV, sharing home made syringes -- or pumps. Three-quarters of Iran's prisoners are addicts.
SYNC
Hussein
HIV+ former addict
"You can score drugs in jail much more easily than outside. When I was inside I used to go to the pusher, pay him a bit of money and inject with the pump. The same pump was used by at least one-hundred people to inject drugs from the morning till night. And it could be used by even more than 100 people. Way more."
SYNC
Bahman
Former addict
"The prison wardens bring the drugs inside prison themselves. Some times they also give it to visitor to bring it in for them . But it's usually the police that bring the drug inside."
Iran's methadone revolution may consign all that to history.
The open-mindedness of the approach verging on counter-intuitive in this regimented, Islamic society.
Hand-outs for those who just a few years ago would have been hanged; now doubly reprieved -- from a life that may well have killed most of them anyway.
A quick fix for boredom; an escape from the stresses of poverty, joblessness; the vortex of hopelessness.
UPSOT Ramin: (voiceover)
"I have no hope in my life any more."
UPSOT Majid: (voiceover)
"I've tried to kill myself... twice. Unfort unately I'm still here."
An addict died of an overdose in here the previous night. It happens almost every night.
So, just how is this Islamic Republic run by puritan clerics dealing with the world's biggest drug problem? Zero-tolerance?
Well, prepare to be surprised.
UPSOT MUSIC
Iran has the highest heroin addiction rate on the planet. No other country even comes close.
Hundreds of tonnes of drugs flood in from next-door Afghanistan, most en route to Europe. The Iranian government admits to three-and-a-half-million addicts among its 75 million people.
NEEDLE-STREWN FLOOR
One in three has HIV / AIDS and 90 per cent have Hepatitus C, an even more deadly disease. Needle-sharing is to blame.
At 21, Ramin, on the left: an addict for five years. Majid, his pusher: 20 years an addict.
Ramin says he's feeling great now that he's shot up. Asked how he felt before, he says, he felt awful.
SYNC Majid (voiceover):
"We've got no money. I hate people."
SYNC Ramin (voiceover):
"No one likes us in this world."
Ramin's a thief; in Iran, like everywhere else, drugs and crime inextricably linked.
RAMIN VOICEOVER
"I break into apartment buildings, start at the top floor and work my way down, stealing all the nice shoes people leave at their front doors."
MAJID VOICEOVER
"Not everyone stoops that low. Some of us make money by selling heroin -- as well as shooting it."
Mohammad was a heroin addict for 12 years, now he's been clean for one. He's on a mission to help get others off the drug.
Every morning, accompanied by another ex-addict, Morteza, he heads to where they used to shoot up.
They're mobbed by addicts who come for the handouts of syringes and clean needles.
Amazingly, this is all officially sanctioned -- and subsidised -- by a government which just a few years ago used to execute addicts.
SYNC
"Ibrahim" addict
"What these guys have been doing has been really effective. The needle exchange program has massively brought down the number of HIV and AIDS cases around here."
Morteza and Mohammad provide medical care for the addicts; and dispense advice and clean equipment.
UPSOT
MOHAMMAD
The United Nations now praises Iran's "enlightened" approach; a far more pragmatic, progressive drugs policy than America's -- and this from a regime the West brands conservative.
Mohammad now takes methadone -- a synthetic heroin substitute; a medical surrogate. The methadone programme's backed and funded by government policy; addicts treated as patients, not criminals.
UPSOT
MOHAMMAD
"Methadone is a kind of pill that keeps you away from drugs. And even if the police stop you they can't lock you up."
The police actually turned up as the addicts had gathered and the camera was rolling. No problem though. It's all above board.
SYNC
MOHAMMAD
"I think methadone is a miracle. I used to inject seven grams of heroin a day. I'd line up five syringes next to each other, stick the needle in my arm and as soon as it was finished I'd stick another one in."
Mohammad used to steal from his mum. Methadone has radically transformed their relationship.
SYNC
ZIBA, MOHAMMAD'S MOTHER
"He leads a healthy life now. He wakes up every morning, takes a shower and even makes his own breakfast. I'm just so happy for him."
Mohammad unhooked himself from what in Persian they just call "gard" -- or "powder" -- through Tehran's Persepolis Centre -- which now attracts hundreds of addicts.
SYNC
Bijan Nasirimanesh
Director, Persepolis Centre
"Patients who come here switch from intravenous addiction to methadone treatment and they also get counselling here."
Bijan Nasirimanesh, a doctor by training, first set up in a trailer; three years on and he's got three separate compounds in the capital.
Methadone doesn't produce a euphoric hit among users -- but it does banish the cravings that go with heroin; a single dose lasts up to a day and a half,
and it's swallowed, not injected -- so the risk of catching HIV or Hep C's almost zero. At Persepolis Centre they grind down the pills so the patients can't sell the methadone on the street.
"Yasmin"
Methadone patient
"You feel normal when you take meth. It's like you've never taken drugs and you're a normal person."
The methadone out-patient and detox centres are being talked up by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose liberal drugs policy's earning him newfound respect. Back in the days of Ayatollah Khomeini, possession of even two grams of heroin was a capital offense.
SYNC
Bija n Nasirimanesh
Director, Persepolis Centre
"Contrary to what people think about the current government, that it's more conservative and fundamentalist, it supports our program much more than previous governments. When President Ahmadi Nejad was the mayor of Tehran he ordered the city authorities to build 40 drop-in centres. And now that he's become the president, he always talks about methadone treatment and is open quite open about Iran's drug problem."
It may be that the Iranian government just realised that executing and locking up addicts wasn't working, but policy is now also driven by fear of a looming HIV epidemic.
This is a counselling session at the Persepolis Centre, led by Bijan's wife, Faranak.
Recently the methadone treatment programme was extend ed to prisons -- which is where most addicts catch HIV, sharing home made syringes -- or pumps. Three-quarters of Iran's prisoners are addicts.
SYNC
Hussein
HIV+ former addict
"You can score drugs in jail much more easily than outside. When I was inside I used to go to the pusher, pay him a bit of money and inject with the pump. The same pump was used by at least one-hundred people to inject drugs from the morning till night. And it could be used by even more than 100 people. Way more."
SYNC
Bahman
Former addict
"The prison wardens bring the drugs inside prison themselves. Some times they also give it to visitor to bring it in for them . But it's usually the police that bring the drug inside."
Iran's methadone revolution may consign all that to history.
The open-mindedness of the approach verging on counter-intuitive in this regimented, Islamic society.
Hand-outs for those who just a few years ago would have been hanged; now doubly reprieved -- from a life that may well have killed most of them anyway.