Soaring opium prices in Iran drive users to synthetic drugs

A sharp rise in the price of opium in Iran has driven long-time users of the traditional narcotic toward cheaper and more dangerous synthetic alternatives, according to a field report published by Tehran-based daily.

The Haft-e Sobh paper cited market data showing a 32 percent year-on-year increase in opium prices in April, bringing the average cost to around 1.64 million rials per gram—equivalent to roughly $2.

The rial fell sharply after the start of Iran-US nuclear negotiations, trading at 820,000 to the dollar. Based on this rate, the current opium price range of 1.3 to 2 million rials per gram translates to $1.58 to $2.44.

“The price hikes in the past two years have been astronomical,” one user told Haft-e Sobh. “People can’t afford opium or its derivatives like opium extract anymore. Many have switched to industrial drugs instead.”

Over the past five years, the average price of opium has more than doubled. In 2020, it stood at around 750,000 rials per gram ($0.91), rising to 1.2 million rials ($1.46) in 2023 and now averaging 1.64 million rials ($2).

For much of the last decade, black-market opium prices had risen more slowly than Iran’s official inflation rate. But that gap has now narrowed considerably. Official inflation in the past year was 33.4 percent, nearly mirroring the 32 percent jump in opium prices.

The shift in affordability has triggered a broader change in consumption. A February 2025 field report by the Etemad newspaper found that the use of traditional narcotics like opium has declined sharply in the past seven years, with heroin and methamphetamine becoming more prevalent.

Unlike opium, meth is often easier to manufacture domestically and does not rely on cross-border supply chains.

Much of the current scarcity is linked to the Taliban’s ban on poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, enacted in early 2022. Taliban forces destroyed large swathes of opium poppy fields, disrupting regional supply and pushing up prices.

In July 2022, Iran’s Tejarat News website reported that prices had spiked nearly sixfold before partially stabilizing.

Meanwhile, as demand remains high, reports of poppy cultivation inside Iran have surfaced despite official crackdowns. Government-linked media recently aired footage of poppy fields being destroyed in southern provinces.

In one case from March, footage released by the Baloch Activists Campaign showed armed raids by Iranian forces on the village of Esfand in Sistan and Baluchistan province, aimed at destroying local poppy farms.

In 2022, the UN office on drugs and crime (UNODC) reported that an estimated 2.8 million people suffer from a drug use problem in Iran. The country also has one of the world’s highest prevalence of opiate use among its population.