Addiction taken to a deadly height

Drug Addiction taken to a deadly height!

A lanky youth slouched to the middle of the road in front of the bustling Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) emergency gate to pick a paper-bag a rickshaw-rider just threw behind. Crossing the road, he gave the bag to a wayside teashop and got Tk 1 in return, which he will spend on drugs to quell his addiction. He needs Tk 24 more to buy a cocktail of injections -- a vicious circle he has been sucked into.

Twenty-five-year-old Rashed, one of the 500 heroin addicts living around the DMCH, was paralysed about three months ago after he began taking high-powered addictive tablets and cocktails of essential drugs as the price of heroin shot up last year.

Although doctors and activists of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) warned them of physical numbness, limb loss and even death from the change in addiction habit, he like other addicts did not give up the cheaper drugs. For him, living without drugs has become all but impossible.

Five of the 350 substance abusers registered with a multilateral NGO have died over the last six months and some others lost their limbs or become paralysed for switching from heroin to essential drugs.

Linking deaths and physical loss to the shift in addiction habit, doctors and NGO activists dealing with the addicts said the toll might rise soon as the drug abusers entered a dangerous zone -- living on cocktails of low-priced injections and tablets.

The price of 10mg heroin increased to Tk 100 from Tk 30-40 two years ago after law enforcers seized some big stashes of heroin in raids on different heroin depots in the city.

Pethedine could not be an alternative for them either, as its price rose to Tk 350 an ampoule after the health ministry stopped its supply to the DMCH in July 2001. Earlier, a group of DMCH officials and employees smuggled the drug out of the hospital to local markets for sale at Tk 50-60 an ampoule. The other major injection, morphine, which was once up for addiction at Tk 500 an ampoule, is also out of reach.

Although financially well-off addicts can afford the two injections, the drug abusers of the low income bracket or without income opted for a cocktail of Phenergan, Easium, Avil, Sedil and Tidigesic -- popularly known as 'Madras-Hydarabad' among addicts.

They also take other drugs like Sedexin, Eunectin, Noctin and Tryptin. None of them costs more than Tk 2 apiece.

"Since an addict's body has been programmed to a specific drug, it begins reacting in an unnatural way when it receives a new item," said a doctor working with the NGO, which provides addicts in the DMCH area with healthcare.

"Because of heroin, Pethedine and other drug shots, their bodies have lost the power to resist even minor diseases and once they do new drugs, the resistance totally collapses," he said.

AIDS, syphilis and other contagious diseases spread fast among drug abusers, as four to five addicts use the same syringe without cleaning well or merely washing in the sewerage water.

"They are too weak to push the injection in veins properly and most addicts are suffering from infection in the body part they push it," the doctor said.

As the addicts started living on the low-priced drugs, pharmacies near major drug-abuse hotbeds, including DMCH area, Bangabandhu National Stadium, High Court Mazar, Mohammadpur embankment, Gopibagh, Tejkunipara, Sayedabad, Dhalpur, Nayabazar, English Road, Nababganj, Kashaituli and Mitford Hospital area, increased prices at least twice the normal.

Drug sellers increased the price of a Tidigesic ampoule to Tk 60-80 from Tk 40-50 six months ago, of Avil to Tk 10-15 from Tk 5, and Phenergan, B-50 Forte and Sedil to Tk 8-15 from Tk 5.

Thirty-year-old Joynal, formerly a rickshawpuller who began taking Pethedine under the influence of his friend, said he has no alternative to cocktails of cheaper drugs.

"The drugstore keepers increased the prices of the drugs to cash in on our vulnerability," he said.

The druggists increased the prices, as the business became too risky, a medicine salesman in DMCH area, preferring not to be named, reasoned out.

"As the prices of heroin and Pethedine climbed because of their scarcity, the addicts began rushing to us for cheaper drugs and police began raiding our shops for toll," he said.

An official of Bangladesh Druggists and Chemists Association said there is a provision of rigorous punishment for selling drugs to addicts.

"We know for sure godfathers force some drugstores to sell drugs to the addicts," the public relations officer of the association, ASM Munir Hossain, said.

The godfathers do the addicts only this 'favour' as they (addicts) hand snatched and stolen items to them to get small sums in return, he added.

Source: The Daily Star - Thu. September 25, 2003