I was born in Iran, left at a very young age - less than a year old - and grew up and was educated in the West.
Hooman MajdThe Iranian government has become pretty open about the drug problem in recent years. Opium use is a very traditional, cultural thing in Iran, so the government is actually more open about it than they are about some of the other ills in society. They just don't want to talk about things that might relate to a Western lifestyle even though they know that Iranians indulge. Because there is no real public life left in Iran - people go and have dinner and then everything retreats behind these Persian walls.
Hooman MajdThe problem is that Iran has been identified as a dangerous enemy, and the longer the media forwards that proposition - and the media is guilty, just as it was in the Iraq war - then the easier it becomes for Americans to accept that we might just have to resort to military force to remove any Iranian threat.
Hooman MajdThe thing about Iran is there are many political factions and it's not quite the dictatorial, authoritarian state with one person always making every single decision.
Hooman Majd