BY AZMAT HAROON
Qatar has been witnessing an increase in the use of illicit drugs and what is alarming is that many of the addicts are youngsters, public health officials say. While cannabis is the most used substance, opiates and amphetamines are also said to be widely in circulation.
The problem, which begins with adolescents experimenting with drugs, later evolves into addiction due to a number of reasons.
People with psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety initially resort to drugs as a form of self-medication, but their prolonged use grows into an addiction which is hard to kick, says Dr Mohammed Al Mahi, psychiatry consulatant at the Social Rehabilitation Center (SRC).
Others, who experts call ‘sensation seekers’, come from broken families, or become dependent on drugs after living abroad where narcotics are easily available, Dr Al Mahi said.
The more serious issue, however, remains the availability of drugs in Qatar. According to the Ministry of Interior (MoI), so far this year, the law enforcement officials made 2,900 drug seizures and other prohibited items at the Doha International Airport, including a recent operation in which attempts to smuggle 850 drug pills into the country were foiled. Drug smugglers could also be using Qatar as a transit route to other countries, the head of Qatar’s Anti-Drug Enforcement Directorate, had said earlier.
There are more efforts to smuggle hashish (an extract of the cannabis plant containing psychoactive resins) compared to other narcotics, Brigadier Ibrahim Eisa Al Bounain said. This is because addicts usually get into the dangerous habit by starting off with hashish, and then gradually advance to other drugs, Al Bounain added.
Among youngsters substance abuse is a common problem worldwide, and Qatar is no exception.
“Often, the experiment in the case of an addict starts during adolescence in schools, like smoking a cigarette hiding from parents. Then, they start trying cannabis — it’s just a cigarette as their friends tell them,” Dr Suhaila Ghuloum, Director of the Department of Psychiatry at HMC, said while explaining addictive behaviour.
“Addiction would start in early 20s. To become addicts, they would have to use the substance for quite a while, regularly, and increasingly in large amounts, and if they stop, their body goes through withdrawal symptoms,” she said, adding that not everybody who uses the substance is necessarily an addict. From a clinical point of view, the growing concern for psychiatrists is the high concentration of active ingredient found in the cannabis available in this country.
“Usually the concentration of active ingredient (tetrahydrocannabinol) in marijuana is about two to three percent. For the drugs available in this country, the concentration of the active ingredient is 12-15 percent,” Dr Muhammed Abdul Alaim Ibrahim, senior mental health consultant at HMC, said.
There are some 156 substances of abuse, which include narcotics, stimulants, depressants (sedatives), hallucinogens and cannabis. Deadly contrabands often come from Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Iran, a health official who didn’t want to be identified said. Most of the substances, health experts say, can also be obtained through the Internet. They are legal because usually their substances are not classified.
The high concentration, which is, in fact, a very tricky thing, leads to several psychotic disorders, Dr Ibrahim added.
“The problem with amphetamines is that any chemist can manufacture it. It is also cheap and very easy to smuggle,” the HMC consultant said. Amphetamine is a psychostimulant drug that produces increased wakefulness and mental alertness in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.
Dr Ibrahim, who is also part of Qatar’s Permanent Committee for Drugs and Alcohol Affairs (PCDAA), said that there are even cases of families helping addicts to continue with their deadly habit.
“I know of a very kind mother who used to get drugs for her son because she didn’t want him to be called over by the police. And, then, I know of a housewife, who tried every means to stop her husband from drinking, but at the end of the day, she convinced him to drink at home,” he said during an open lecture on how to deal with drug and alcohol addiction, organised by HMC psychiatry department at its premises.
Unfortunately, says Dr Ibrahim, most societies see addicts as sinners and evil people. The police try to treat them as criminals, while the judiciary treats them as mere offenders.
“Even though there are multiple reasons for drug addiction, at the end of the day it is a chronic relapsing disease,” he said.
This is very reassuring for addicts - even if it is experimenting, harmful abuse, dependency or addiction. By treating it as a disease, we destigmatise the problem”, Dr Ibrahim added.
Officials, meanwhile, insist the number of addicts who seek treatment does not reflect the actual extent of the problem.
“In reality, what we see is not the full extent of the problem. There are several places they go to. Some addicts who seek help are referred to us through legal channels,” Dr Suhaila said.
Because addiction, irrespective of its nature, is highly stigmatised, many seek treatment go abroad, the director added. The Qatari law, however, is very encouraging when it comes to helping drug addicts kick their habit.
The confidentiality of patients is strictly protected by Articles 38-39 of the Law on Drug Control (Number 9 of 1987, as amended by Law No. 7 of 1998), which says that those who confess to drug abuse and seek treatment will not be handed over to the authorities.
“If someone comes forward for treatment voluntarily, as per the law, there can be no investigation against him. As a physician I don’t ask them about their sources,” Dr Ibrahim said.
Additionally, one of the problems of treating addictions is cost. Only 20 percent of addicts in the US have access to treatment. In Qatar, rehabilitation and psychiatric facilities for addicts are free.
However, with substance abuse spreading, experts within the PCDAA are calling on the Interior Ministry to launch awareness campaigns in more languages to fight the problem.
The Peninsula
