Drug addiction is noted to be on the rise in Bangladesh. Among the addictive drugs, the one of choice for most of the addicts seems to be phensydyl. This is because it is cheap and easily available. It used to be prescribed by doctors in the neighbouring country as a cough syrup but is actually an intoxicant with sedative effects on the users. It is smuggled in huge quantities into Bangladesh, because there is a lucrative market for the same here. The market is being sustained and enlarged by a nexus of the drug peddlers, some corrupt elements in the police department and their various shelter givers.
Apart from phensydyl, other hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine, morphin, pethedine and newer ones, especially, for sexual stimulation such as yaba are being consumed by a growing number of users in the country. The addicts of these relatively costlier addictive substances are mainly young people from affluent families. But they also include senior persons and bored housewives and their numbers are increasing. Thus, there is no way to treat the threat from addiction as a small one in the context of Bangladesh. It is already a serious sociological or health and economic problem. Especially the drugs used for sexual stimulation have spawned dens of vice. Recent actions against such rackets showed to what alarming extent the rot has spread and its victims among otherwise genteel members of society. Allowing it to go unaddressed could spell disaster for notable sections of the population in the near future.
Even a decade ago, clinics to treat drug addiction hardly existed. But now such clinics are to be spotted in many parts of Dhaka city signifying the rise in the number of drug addicts. The effect of drug use on the individuals and their families can be shattering. Bright students with highly prospective careers in view suddenly turned into pathetic imbeciles as they were habituated to drug through friends and other undesirable contacts. There are many families in Bangladesh today where a woman has lost her husband or son, or brother to addiction from which they could never recover. Even the ones who are thought to be reformed at the correction centres can be a drain on the resources of modest families. Cases of divorce in the country are going up as wives separate from drug addict husbands who proved to be burdens on and tormentors of their families. Drug addiction among the lower sections of the population too has an intimate relationship with crime. In most cases, such drug users operate occasionally as snatchers and robbers just to get some money to buy drugs.
Therefore, the direct consequences of the drug addiction are loss of health and happiness, stresses on social and family lives and rise in crimes. The same can be translated overall as undermining national productivity.
Time is ripe for leaders at the highest level to wake up to the danger posed to healthy existence of society as more and more new addicts join the ranks of the hardcore ones. This slide must be arrested at all costs. The Drugs and Narcotics Department was created nearly two decades ago, especially to counter the production and availability of addictive drugs. But it has done little over the years to attain its given objectives. The corruption, allegedly, runs high in it.
Thus, a plan has to be drawn up to shake off the corrupt ones in the Drug and Narcotics Department. New and more effective ways of operating will have to be introduced into this body. The corrupt elements in the police service, who have nexus with the drug dealers, will have to be removed. As a preventive measure, social awareness about the problem must be increased through ensuring a greater media focus on it and stepped up official publicity.
Apart from phensydyl, other hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine, morphin, pethedine and newer ones, especially, for sexual stimulation such as yaba are being consumed by a growing number of users in the country. The addicts of these relatively costlier addictive substances are mainly young people from affluent families. But they also include senior persons and bored housewives and their numbers are increasing. Thus, there is no way to treat the threat from addiction as a small one in the context of Bangladesh. It is already a serious sociological or health and economic problem. Especially the drugs used for sexual stimulation have spawned dens of vice. Recent actions against such rackets showed to what alarming extent the rot has spread and its victims among otherwise genteel members of society. Allowing it to go unaddressed could spell disaster for notable sections of the population in the near future.
Even a decade ago, clinics to treat drug addiction hardly existed. But now such clinics are to be spotted in many parts of Dhaka city signifying the rise in the number of drug addicts. The effect of drug use on the individuals and their families can be shattering. Bright students with highly prospective careers in view suddenly turned into pathetic imbeciles as they were habituated to drug through friends and other undesirable contacts. There are many families in Bangladesh today where a woman has lost her husband or son, or brother to addiction from which they could never recover. Even the ones who are thought to be reformed at the correction centres can be a drain on the resources of modest families. Cases of divorce in the country are going up as wives separate from drug addict husbands who proved to be burdens on and tormentors of their families. Drug addiction among the lower sections of the population too has an intimate relationship with crime. In most cases, such drug users operate occasionally as snatchers and robbers just to get some money to buy drugs.
Therefore, the direct consequences of the drug addiction are loss of health and happiness, stresses on social and family lives and rise in crimes. The same can be translated overall as undermining national productivity.
Time is ripe for leaders at the highest level to wake up to the danger posed to healthy existence of society as more and more new addicts join the ranks of the hardcore ones. This slide must be arrested at all costs. The Drugs and Narcotics Department was created nearly two decades ago, especially to counter the production and availability of addictive drugs. But it has done little over the years to attain its given objectives. The corruption, allegedly, runs high in it.
Thus, a plan has to be drawn up to shake off the corrupt ones in the Drug and Narcotics Department. New and more effective ways of operating will have to be introduced into this body. The corrupt elements in the police service, who have nexus with the drug dealers, will have to be removed. As a preventive measure, social awareness about the problem must be increased through ensuring a greater media focus on it and stepped up official publicity.
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