New York Times:

At the Tehran party there was alcohol, of course, though it was a quiet affair, nothing like the wild, over-the-top events of urban legend. People just sat at a table, sipping drinks and talking as they would in many places across the world. After a while, someone made a phone call, and a few minutes later the doorbell rang and in walked a nondescript-looking man getting on in years.

He worked quickly, opening his briefcase to put his goods on display — an impressive variety of locally produced marijuana brands with varying degrees of potency, with names such as Royal Queen, DNA and Nirvana. All the while, his phone kept ringing, and though Iranian etiquette prescribes that he allow the partygoers to take their time in choosing, he kept discreetly checking his watch. He had a lot of other stops to make.

Iran is notorious for its harsh code of conduct enforced by an extensive intelligence apparatus, and it has waged a long and painful war on heroin and opium trafficking, with security forces dying by the thousands over the past two decades in fights with Afghan cartels.

But the same government that executes hundreds of drug dealers every year — and cracks down periodically on alcohol, which is also illegal — seems curiously oblivious to the growing popularity of marijuana...

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