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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

We hate them because we never know them… We never know them, because we hate them

A recovering addict’s prayer from Hope Centre
Being a recovering drug addict, life at times, leaves me awestruck when I look at where I was during my addiction days. Perhaps, we tend to relish the adulation of staying clean too soon. Well, staying clean does not culminate into peace and instant immunity towards society. Near and dear ones, our past habit and way of life thwart us and we find it very difficult to rejoin society because we are socially condemned.
Drug addiction refers to the harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances including alcohol and illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, etc. its use can lead to dependence syndrome, a cluster of behavioral, cognitive and physiological phenomena that develop after repeated substance use.
Persisting in its use despite harmful consequences, a higher priority is given to drug use than to other activities and obligations. Increased tolerance and sometimes a physical withdrawal state results in psychological addiction such as shame, remorse, paranoia, which carves a niche and stays on for an extensive period within an addict. It also includes mood disorders like depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder as well as anti-social personality disorder.
The World Health Organisation, in 1958, officially declared addiction as a disease, which of course, also includes alcohol as a drug. The treatment of drug dependent people is important to reduce sufferer’s social and health problems. Drug addiction is quite common, affecting 7% and more than 2% at some stage of human life respectively, like using pain killers. Unfortunately due to the low level of awareness of drug addiction in Sikkim, which is considered a privileged state, the stigmatization of drug addicts prevails at large.
An estimated 7.5 Cr alcoholics, 90 lakh cannabis users, 2.5 lakh users of opiates and nearly 10 lakh users of hard drugs are in India. According to the national survey on extent pattern and trends conducted by the Center in collaboration with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime this clearly denotes the overwhelming number of alcoholics and the number of crime and violence especially domestic violence committed under its influence. The only difference is that alcohol is legally available and accepted socially.
Poor drug addicts are outclassed, demonized and stigmatized. It is not an endeavour to marginalize alcoholics but the point is, addicts and alcoholics both are dependant on their preferred substance. Both are sick and both require treatment and awareness about their disease and its negative impact towards their families and society. Unfortunately, stigmatization of drug addicts has only swelled beyond limit proving very hard for a recovering addict to live life in the fullest manner expected of them.
I fully understand, appreciate and respect that we, in Sikkim are socially influenced by alcohol. We make local alcohol such as brewed millet [chang] and rice wine, etc for self consumption and offerings to local deities for appeasement during rituals and festivals because of this socio-religious factor people tolerate alcoholics and view drug addicts as a planet apart. If the current trend of stigmatizing drug addicts continues then the future is very bleak for the upcoming sufferers because owing to the pressure of society, people will start to use secretly and be confined to themselves and his/her family members, which breeds more denial of addiction as a disease and more importantly its treatment.
In fact, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has recently announced the global war on drugs as a failure and has stressed the need for a new approach. A new approach to decentralize repressive methods to tackle the war on drugs that takes power out of the hands of organized crime and treats people with addiction as patients and not criminals because every addict does not represent a gangster.
If so, then a whopping 25 Cr illicit drug consumers world-wide would have to be jailed, so its time now to break the taboo by replacing the psychological criminalization and punishment of drug users by offering health and treatment facility to addicts. The amount spent on jailing people for drug related offence could be better spent on different ways to reduce drug demand and the harm caused by the drug to the sufferers themselves and move towards an egalitarian society.
Eminent former leaders of the world have supported this moral cause. Leaders such as former Colombian President, Cesar Gaveria, current Greek Prime Minister, George Paparendou, former Mexican President, Ernest Zedillo, former Switzerland President, Ruth Dreifuss, former US Secretary of State, George Schultz, former UN Secretary, General Kofi Annan, former UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Lousie Arbour, have all urged nations to legalise drugs in a bid to undermine organized crime. Therefore, the pre-requisition lies within us. How much do we want to view addiction as a disease or deny it as disease and continue to loath drug dependent people?
I would like to thank Mr Ugen Ladakhi for his unconditional support, who paid for my rehabilitation and gave me a new lease of life and Mr Rinzing and Yapchung Bhutia of Ravangla for their help.

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