Security forces destroying seized bottles of spirits in Teheran. — ©2023 The New York Times Company
WHEN a renowned Iranian artist hosted friends at his apartment in Teheran last month, he served, as he did often, a bottle of homemade aragh, a traditional Iranian vodka distilled from raisins, that he had secured from a trusted dealer.
His guests and his partner did not drink that evening, so he raised shot glasses to them and drank alone.
Within a few hours, the artist, Khosrow Hassanzadeh felt his vision blur. By the next morning, his sight was gone, he was delirious and short of breath.
He was rushed to hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with methanol poisoning from the aragh, according to his partner, Shahrzad Afrashteh.
Hassanzadeh, 60, fell into a coma that night and died two weeks later, on July 2. His death, from something as innocuous as having drinks with friends, shocked and infuriated many Iranians who have found ways around the Islamic republic’s longstanding ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol, which is punishable by a penalty of up to 80 lashes and fines.
Rather than stopping drinking, the ban over time has led to a flourishing and dangerous bootleg market. In the past three months, a wave of alcohol poisonings has spread with an average of about 10 cases per day of hospitalisations and deaths, according to official tallies in local news reports.
The culprit is methanol, found in homemade distilled alcohol and counterfeit brand bottles, apparently circulating widely, according to Iranian media reports and interviews with Iranians who drink, sell and make alcohol.
To many Iranians, the deaths are an example of how the country’s rules oppress ordinary citizens and meddle in their personal lives.
Hassanzadeh died of methanol poisoning from bootleg alcohol. His death, from something as innocuous as having drinks with friends, shocked and infuriated many Iranians. — ©2023 The New York Times Company
After Hassanzadeh’s death, a collective of artists and writers in exile issued a statement saying that he was, “without a doubt, a victim of religious authoritarianism”.
At his funeral, his partner screamed, “Don’t ever forget that they killed him.”
Hassanzadeh was known in art circles in Iran and abroad for his remarkable trajectory from a fruit seller in a working-class neighbourhood to a celebrated artist whose work was exhibited at venues such as the British Museum and auctioned at Christie’s and Sotheby’s.
His art, a mixture of painting, Persian calligraphy and print, captured the everyday triumphs and struggles of Iranians, and his themes included religious rituals, scars of war and the reverence of cultural icons, consumerism and pop culture.
“Khosrow spent his entire life trying to preserve in his art certain ideals, rituals and lives of ordinary people in Iran. Drinking aragh is very much part of the socialising culture here,” said Afrashteh in a telephone interview from Teheran.
“It feels as if he was killed while practising his own art. Now you can’t even have a drink without fear in Iran.”
The clerical rulers who took power after the 1979 revolution, instituting a theocracy, banned the consumption and selling of alcohol in accordance with Islamic rules prohibiting intoxication. Religious minorities are exempt.
Over the decades, reports of methanol contamination occasionally surfaced, but not in the scope and frequency seen in recent months.
Even officials are now publicly acknowledging that the problem has escalated.
Mehdi Forouzesh, Teheran’s chief coroner, said recently that the number of hospitalisations and deaths from methanol poisoning had sharply risen.
In only Teheran, he said, it had climbed by 36.8% since the beginning of March.
From the beginning of May until July 3, at least 309 people had been hospitalised and 31 had died from methanol poisoning, according to Iranian news reports. But the real number is likely much higher because many cases go unreported out of fear of retribution for breaking the law.
At least one lawmaker recently called for government action to prevent deaths.
Abbas Masjedi Arani, the head of Iran’s Forensic Medicine Organisation, said last month that 644 people had died in 2022 from alcohol poisoning, a 30% rise from the previous year. Many victims permanently lost their eyesight.
The reason for the latest sharp increase in alcohol contamination remains unclear.
“I don’t believe that some dealers have suddenly decided to kill their customers all at the same time,” said an alcohol producer and seller in Teheran who goes by Soheil, defending his trade despite the recent contamination.
“Dealing and making homemade alcohol is already very risky in Iran,” he said. “Nobody wants to harm their clients and their business.”
Dealers, if caught, could face jail, with their inventory confiscated or destroyed.
The authorities have attributed the increase in poisonings to reasons like the use of industrial-level alcohol in drinks, sloppy production, the greed of producers and a disregard for safety in search of a quick profit.
Many Iranians love to drink, and nothing has dissuaded them from a tradition deeply rooted in ancient Persian culture. Homemade alcohol and imported liquor flow freely at many parties, weddings and social gatherings. Some upscale restaurants secretly serve patrons vodka in pots of tea.
“Drinking alcohol has become a form of escape from our difficult circumstances and a way for us to experience some fun,” said Nina, 39, who like many interviewed in Iran asked that her last name not be used for fear of retribution.
She said the crisis of contamination required proper oversight, but that she had little hope that the government would reverse course.
The police have discovered underground distilleries in a veterinary clinic, a roadside shack, a deodorant factory and abandoned warehouses.
Experts say it is nearly impossible for an average consumer to detect deadly methanol, which does not smell or taste different from ethanol, in a drink. Home distillation increases the risk of methanol poisoning, they say, if the process is not carefully and properly executed.
Hassanzadeh, the artist, did not trust the bootleg brand bottles and preferred homemade aragh, relying on a dealer he trusted, his partner said. Friends have tried to contact the dealer, but he has not answered his phone.
However, someone spotted him at Hassanzadeh’s funeral. — ©2023 The New York Times Company
