Today, 30 September, is International Recovery Day. For the occasion Desh Rupantor's Fazlur Rahman spoke to people who left drugs behind through treatment, counselling and family support. A woman working at a private firm in Dhanmondi (given the pseudonym Sathi) became addicted after colleagues pressed her to try drugs; on a psychiatrist's advice she cut contact with drug-using friends, took prescribed medicine and kept regular follow-ups, and after a year and a half she is fully drug-free.
Psychiatrist Professor Mohit Kamal said addiction is curable, but needs treatment in a rehabilitation centre rather than at home, and the patient must want to stop. Someone who stays off drugs for at least two years after treatment can be considered free of addiction. He added that addiction is linked with mental illness.
Figures cited in the report put the number of people with addiction at about 8.2 million, against about 3.6 million in a 2018 study by the National Institute of Mental Health. Some 6.1 million use cannabis. Government and private rehabilitation centres number only 390, with 6,329 beds. A study funded by the Department of Narcotics Control found that more than 60 percent of users first take drugs before the age of 18, and that use is spreading fast in rural areas.
AFM Ehteshamul Haque, joint secretary (narcotics wing) at the home ministry, said there is a plan for seven 200-bed government centres in the divisional cities and a 250-bed centre in Dhaka at a cost of Tk 16,000 crore, but it is still at the planning stage.
Dhaka Ahsania Mission's five treatment and rehabilitation centres have treated 2,789 patients in 20 years, 2,142 for addiction and 647 for mental illness, with a recovery rate of 75 percent; 29.8 percent of patients used yaba and 33.8 percent cannabis. Rakhi Ganguly, the mission's senior psychologist, said addiction is not a moral failure but a complex mental and behavioural health problem.
Md Hasan Maruf, director general of the Department of Narcotics Control, said there are 386 private and four government treatment centres and more are being added, and that the family, the first school, must watch that no one starts taking drugs.
Source: Desh Rupantor
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