Monitoring irregularities of drug rehabilitation centre a must

With the spread of drug abuse in the country, drug addiction rehabilitation centers are set up everywhere. Allegations of torturing drug addicts in the name of treatment and rehabilitation have been raised against such centres, most of which have been established without approval. Some centres are accused of providing all kinds of drugs including Yaba to the patients. As a result, the relatives of the patients admitted to those centres spend a huge amount of money but they are not getting any benefit. Drug abuse, meanwhile, is gobbling up the strength and potential of a large part of the country's young generation. As a result, social degradation is increasing, which is worrying for the country.

As the drug rehabilitation centres are service providing organisations of the society, they have several responsibilities. Their main responsibility is to bring the drug addict back to the mainstream of society through rehabilitation. They are also working towards that goal; but their achievements are fading for the misdeeds of some dishonest rehabilitation centres. It has been found that most of the rehabilitation centres do not increase the quality of service despite taking the government incentive every year. As a result, the plight of the drug addicts and their relatives falls on deaf ears.

According to media reports, the overall condition of most of the licensed drug rehabilitation centres is very bad. At some centres, drug is sold openly while authorities of some centres torture the drug addicts in the name of treatment. Patients and family members are held hostage by some centres falling into sexual traps. There are even allegations against some centres of beating the patients to death. Such allegations have been raised by the monitoring agency for drug rehabilitation centres, the Directorate of Drug Control.

Most of the drug addicts in the country are suffering from some mental illness. In this situation there are 370 licensed drug rehabilitation centres with 5,000 beds. Among those, four are government rehabilitation centres with only 200 beds, which is comparatively very low than the actual need. So, there is no alternative to increase the government administered drug rehabilitation centres.

Drug addiction is a multidimensional complex problem. Bangladesh ranks seventh in terms of the number of drug addicts in the world. Although Bangladesh is not a drug producing country, the country has become a victim of drug aggression due to its geographical location. As a result, a huge amount of money for illegal drug imports is going out of the country. Moreover, the drug dealers are siphoning off money out of the country to keep this illegal money safe. As a result, the economy of the country is being severely damaged. The government has announced zero tolerance against drug addiction, but experts say the results of this zero tolerance are not yet satisfactory.

In the face of various allegations, the authorities concerned will have to increase monitoring of the drug rehabilitation centres. At the same time, we have to keep in mind that the government alone cannot resolve the multi-dimensional problem like drug abuse. Therefore, in order to eradicate drug addiction from society addiction, people need to awaken human values, increase awareness and social movement. There is no alternative to integrated initiatives to remove drug abuse from the country.