Dr Dolan’s book details the intimate lives of four Iranian women, their struggle with drugs and the daily grind they faced in their personal lives. Surprisingly, Iran responded well to its AIDS crisis but forgot to include female drug users. While Dr Dolan delivered training to Iranian prison doctors, she met women who were addicted to drugs and were desperately in need of treatment. With her health professional colleagues in Iran, she set out to establish the first drug treatment clinic for women. She was granted access to areas and people not normally afforded to outsiders. One of the most interesting aspect of the clinic was the safe room that allowed women to remove their hejabs, smoke cigarettes and reveal their life stories. Working at the clinic challenged assumptions Dr Dolan had of Iran and its people. She came away with insights that are rare even in the world of international development.

Offers new and cutting-edge research on the role of drugs in Iranian society and government. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Creating an accurate picture of daily life in Iran is a difficult endeavor. Due to strict religious and moral codes, even photographing a woman inside her home without a scarf covering her head is all but impossible. Evidence of the censure of media in Iran has always been visible to Western nations, and has been brought to the forefront in the wake of the recent elections held there. But, Tehran has a drug problem. On the streets, in back alleys, and in small, crumbling, low-cost apartments, Iranian crack addicts are finding their fix in steadily rising numbers. The crack-a term used to describe many types of crystallized narcotics-currently flooding the streets of Tehran is different from that found in the West in a significant way: the "black crack" in Iran is made from heroin, not cocaine. Intent on documenting the plight of these masses of addicts, Aslon Arfa struck out into the underbelly of modern Tehran, camera in tow. The results of his mission, compiled here in Black Crack in Iran, are devastating images of men and women in the midst of a downfall. Some, including a young man with glazed eyes and infected burns stretching across his torso, are closer to the bottom than others. Further complicating the documentation of the epidemic are the shame of addiction, the misunderstanding and disapproval of drug use by outsiders, and the lack of trust from suffering people whose sickness is also a crime punishable by death. Yet, after months spent in the trenches, Arfa has succeeded in bringing the closed-door activities of Iran's most unseemly citizens to light in Black Crack in Iran.

An eye-opening personal account of an epic human drama, Embracing the Infidel takes us on an astounding journey along a modern-day underground railroad that stretches from Istanbul to Paris. In this groundbreaking book, Iranian-American Behzad Yaghmaian has done what no other writer has managed to do–as he enters the world of Muslim migrants and tells their extraordinary stories of hope for a new life in the West. In a tent city in Greece, they huddle together. Men and women from Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, and other countries. Most have survived war and brutal imprisonment, political and social persecution. Some have faced each other in battle, and all share a powerful desire for freedom. Behzad Yaghmaian lived among them, listened to their hopes, dreams, and fears–and now he weaves together dozens of their stories of yearning, persecution, and unwavering faith. We meet Uncle Suleiman, an Iraqi veteran of the Iran-Iraq war; once imprisoned by Saddam Hussein, he is now a respected elder of a ramshackle tent city in Athens, offering comfort and community to his fellow travelers…Purya, who fled Iran only to fall into the clutches of human smugglers and survive beatings and torture in Bulgaria…and Shahroukh Khan, an Afghan teenager whose world at home was shattered twice–once by the Taliban and again by American bombs–but whose story turns on a single moment of awakening and love in the courtyard of a Turkish mosque. A chronicle of husbands separated from wives, children from parents, Embracing the Infidel is a portrait of men and women moving toward a promised land they may never reach–and away from a world to which they cannot return. It is an unforgettable tale of heartbreak and prejudice, courage, heroism, and hope.

Dr Dolan's book details the intimate lives of four Iranian women, their struggle with drugs and the daily grind they faced in their personal lives.

Her name is Lori Foroozandeh, and this is her true story.Lori lived her young years as a victim of abuse. As she grew older she fell into a classic pattern of self-destructiveness. But by the time she was twenty-seven, she was doing her utmost to create a sane life. Mohammad Foroozandeh seemed like a man she could trust, a man who would care for her and respect her. Though she knew he engaged in drug use, she ignored the warning signs and married him. Two years later, he asked her to move to Iran, promising that she could pursue her career, assuring her that the country was quite modern. For four years, Lori adjusted as best she could to the oppressive customs of the land, but as her husband grew more demanding of her, he also became more violent.After the World Trade Center bombings, Mohammad told her they must leave Iran. He purchased bus tickets that he said would take them out of the country and eventually to America. But before they could escape, armed guards attacked and kidnapped her. Lori was blindfolded and taken to a paramilitary POW camp somewhere in the hills. Then the nightmare began?Ǫ. six weeks of horrific beatings, raping, torture, and starvation.