Drug abuse study launched

Addicts injecting heroin have increased up to 15 percent in Pakistan over the past decade, according to a drug abuse assessment study by the UN Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODCCP), released in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Monday. "From less than two percent of heroin users in 1993 to approximately 15 percent,heroin addicts turned to injecting in 2000," the coordinator of the study, Nadeem-ur-Rehman, told IRIN in Islamabad. He added that this method of administration put the estimated 60,000 drug users at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Already an alarming 89 percent were infected with hepatitis C, another deadly blood-borne disease. Nadeem-ur-Rehman said although over the past decade the number of heroin addicts had stabilised, drug addiction was spreading into the rural areas together with a marked change in usage. "In terms of abuse, cannabis is the number one, heroin number two, followed by alcohol and psychotropic substances," he noted. Some 77 percent of those using heroin reported using it every day. According to the report, among 15- to 45-year-old males, there are some 500,000 regular heroin and intravenous drug users in a population of 140 million. "Compared to the regions surrounding Pakistan, such as South Asia, Central Asia and the Far East, this number represents a quite high addiction rate," he said. Over one-third of the addicts interviewed for the report had also spent time in prison. Together with Iran and Afghanistan, Pakistan continues to face a wide range of drug-related issues, such as poppy cultivation, drug trafficking and alarming rates of drug abuse. Formerly known as the Golden Crescent, the region has brought about substantial improvements, such as the nearly complete eradication of poppy cultivation in Pakistan and huge seizures of opium in Iran. However, there is evidence that poppy cultivation has started again in parts of the semi-autonomous Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan. "I have planted poppy now, because the government is not allowing any electricity into our area, and that has ruined our agriculture," a farmer, who requested anonymity, told IRIN from Wana, the administrative headquarters of the remote South Waziristan Agency. Most of the farmers there had planted poppy in protest against the government's decision to cut off the agricultural valley's an electricity supply, he said. Nadeem-ur-Rehman maintained that three case studies on HIV, drug abuse and treatment facilities in the eastern city of Lahore, had highlighted the need for more resources. He also noted that increasing numbers of teenage street children were becoming addicted to sniffing glue, a growing new form of drug abuse in the country. Pakistan lacks a functioning system of treatment for and rehabilitation of its hundreds of thousands of addicts. "There is a 99 percent relapse rate," he said. UNODCCP is helping the government of Pakistan to establish a drug rehabilitation centre in each of its four provinces. With most of the existing treatment centres only providing detoxification, and having only limited or no rehabilitation facilities, according to the report, an overwhelming 80 percent of addicts were unable to afford the cost of treatment. The report also recommended the development of comprehensive, high-quality and affordable treatment facilities countrywide. It also called for the monitoring of HIV and other blood-borne diseases among the intravenous drug users, as well as more research into the dynamics of drug abuse among women.