The starting age for smoking in Iran has dropped to 13, according to a new Iranian report. Moeen Shirazi, a cleric who heads the Iranian Anti-Tobacco Association, said during a ceremony marking World No Smoking Day, "In the past 20 years the starting age for smoking in our county was about 20 years old. Now, however, it is 13 years old."

During the same ceremony, Dr. Ali Akbar Sayari, the deputy minister of health in President Hassan Rouhani's administration, said that each year, Iranians spend $3.3 billion on smoking. This is the same amount the Rouhani administration allocated for healthcare in 2014.

Despite the smoking-age drop, there are conflicting statistics regarding the total number of smokers in Iran. Last year, for example, Mohammad Reza Masjedi, director of the Anti-Smoking Society, claimed there were 10 million smokers in Iran — twice the number cited a year later by his colleague Shirazi, a member of same organization. According to Masjedi, 28% of adult men and 3% of adult women in Iran smoke.

Shirzad Abdollahi, a Tehran-based education expert, told Al-Monitor that the drop in the smoking age is due to children having easy access to cigarettes at supermarkets, newsstands and on the sidewalks. "There is no law prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to minors," he said. "The fact that many of them have parents and close relatives who are smokers, that smoking is allowed in all public places, in addition to the absence of healthy alternatives, as well as the inability of the school system to properly educate kids are all contributing to this problem."