Bangladesh's laws and society still treat as crimes conditions that medical science sees as treatable disorders, public mental health specialist Imdadul Haque Talukder writes in a column published by Prothom Alo around World Mental Health Day. As a result, people with addictions or in mental crisis face punishment instead of compassionate care. The views are the writer's own.
His first example is attempted suicide. The American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5-TR and the World Health Organization's ICD-11 describe it as an extreme expression of deep distress or depression, yet under section 309 of the 1860 Penal Code an attempt is still a punishable offence. Fear of that, he argues, makes families hide what happened and keeps the person from getting treatment in time.
He sees the same conflict with drug addiction. Citing neuroscience research, he writes that substance use disorder is a chronic, relapsing disease of the brain. Yet the Narcotics Control Act of 2018 treats users as hardened criminals alongside suppliers, and prisons offer little in the way of medically supervised detoxification or psychotherapy.
The third issue is gambling addiction, which he says is spreading fast among young and marginalised people through illegal online betting apps on smartphones. Medicine treats it as a disorder of the brain's reward system, while the Public Gambling Act of 1867 and the cyber security framework treat it only as an offence.
He points to other countries. Portugal decriminalised personal drug use in 2001 and sends users to commissions of psychologists and social workers instead of the courts. The United Kingdom decriminalised attempted suicide in 1961, and section 115 of India's Mental Healthcare Act of 2017 treats a person who attempts suicide as someone under severe stress who needs immediate care. Mental health courts in the United States and Canada offer treatment and rehabilitation instead of punishment.
His proposals: repeal section 309 and decriminalise attempted suicide; update the drug control, gambling and mental health laws to the standards of modern medicine; and introduce compulsory training for police, lawyers and judges on the difference between mental illness and criminal behaviour.
A civilised society, he writes, does not handcuff a person in mental anguish but brings them to compassion, psychotherapy and rehabilitation with dignity. Anyone in crisis, or worried about someone who is, should contact a doctor or a mental health service without delay.
Photo: Yahya / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0); the National Institute of Mental Health and Hospital in Dhaka
Source: Prothom Alo
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