drug addiction treatment
Treatment of drug addiction was seen as it looks at germs and microbes that attack people and make them sick. It seemed as if the drug user was a person who had no will, lured by the drug dealer and his aides until they made him addicted to it.
This is not true except in very few cases, but in the vast majority of cases, drug use and the subsequent addiction was a conscious act that a person committed knowingly and voluntarily and with a complete will that does not detract from the fact that he was affected by psychological or social factors….
As a result of this narrow view of drugs, governments and their various institutions have directed their attention to the people who bring in drugs and those who traffic in them, and have intensified their penalties time and time again, perhaps dissuading them from bringing and trafficking in drugs.
She did not forget the abuser and the addict, so the punishment stipulated in the law was tightened for them as well so that they would wake up and not let these and those deceive them or deceive them.
Thus, governments have failed to realize that the tightening of penalties, whether for bringers, smugglers and traders, or for drug addicts and addicts, is not by itself sufficient to prevent the first party from bringing and trading drugs, nor to distract the second party from drug abuse and addiction.
As for the first group, a statistical analytical study of the crimes of drug trafficking and drug trafficking was previously conducted before and after the tightening of the penalties. It was found that immediately after the tightening, there was a severe decrease in it, amounting to 50%, that lasted only six months, then it returned to rise gradually until it reached 100% after one year. Then it reached 200% after two years and so on until it became like an arithmetic sequence, which indicates that the tightening of penalties is not sufficient alone to prevent trafficking and trafficking in them or even to reduce them, but rather, the demand for drugs must be prevented or reduced to a minimum. Because as long as the smugglers and dealers find that drugs bring them huge profits that no other trade brings, they will not abandon them, whatever the dangers that surround them and which they always think they can avoid and overcome.
From this, the price of a kilogram of opium in the producing countries does not exceed ten dollars, while in the consuming countries it is ten thousand dollars. And in industry
Cocaine returns the employment of one hundred dollars to its owner, with benefits estimated at about one hundred thousand dollars!
Here comes the role of the second group, that is, drug users and addicts. They are the ones who buy drugs at the prices set by the dealers, and from them smugglers and fetchers, who bring them huge profits that encourage them to continue in this trade.
And this is what the governments saw that increasing the punishment would make them wake up and stop buying them and forgot that if this is true for those who use drugs that do not cause addiction, then it is not true for drugs whose abuse leads to addiction and who will not be frightened by the punishment, no matter how severe because the state of addiction Make them underestimate everything.
Therefore, the demand will remain and the merchants will meet it, whatever the risks they will compensate by raising prices, and they are confident that the addicts will not be able to stop buying, but will do their utmost to get the money needed to buy.
But if we assume the merchants’ inability to provide the “class”, this will not make the addict stop, but will work on his part to obtain an alternative that may be more harmful than the type he is addicted to.
As a result of reliance on severe penalties in the face of drugs, the responsibility for combating it has fallen on the shoulders of the police, the judiciary, and prisons. The police pursue and arrest the bringers, smugglers, dealers, drug users and addicts to submit them to the judiciary, who imposes the penalties stipulated in the law on them if they are convicted and they are placed in prisons to serve their sentences.
Perhaps the absence of innovative opinions and unconventional positions on the drug problem is due to this impractical situation arising from the legislator’s belief that the matter does not require more than continuous police efforts and quick and harsh judicial rulings. Drugs of all kinds and a greater increase in the quantities seized, which the United Nations considers to be equal to 10% of the total amount that is being smuggled into the country.
We do not deny that there were efforts made on the sidelines of the police-judicial struggle, such as preaching by some clerics in mosques and other places of prayer, and advice and guidance by some doctors and researchers in the field of drugs on radio and television, as well as conferences, seminars and workshops.
As we note, all these activities are directed to everyone, addicts and non-addicts, and it is also flawed by the severe superficiality arising from the fact that those who carried out them were and are still confident that something serious will not be achieved. Pretending to do a duty, nothing more.
The beginning of interest in treatment Although drug abuse is one of the old problems in our Arab world, the thought of treating drug addiction did not appear in us until after the United Nations Economic and Social Council decided in 1958 to call for a conference to approve a single drug convention.
“The Conference, recalling the provisions of Article 38 of the Convention relating to the treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts:
1- It is declared that treating addicts in hospitals in a drug-free atmosphere is one of the most effective means of treatment.
2- Urges States Parties in which drug addiction constitutes a serious problem to provide these facilities, if their economic resources permit that.
The Protocol issued on March 25, 1972, amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, also authorized the states parties to replace the punishment stipulated by law for drug users with measures subject to treatment, education, rehabilitation and social care procedures (Article 14).
As stated in Article (15) that states parties should take the necessary measures to prevent the misuse of narcotic drugs, and work to treat addicts and rehabilitate them professionally and socially so that they return to society as good individuals capable of giving.
Thus, the protocol has confirmed that efforts should not be limited only to influencing the supply of narcotic substances, but must also affect the demand for them.
This is the same as what the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances has been keen on, whereby states parties have been authorized to apply to the abuser – instead of punishment – other measures, such as drug treatment, aftercare or rehabilitation from drug addiction with the aim of reintegrating him into society (Article Third Paragraph No. 3-b, c, d) At the Arab level, the Arab Convention for Combating Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was issued in 1994, and its second article, Paragraph 3-c, stated that it is permissible for drug users to replace penalties with other measures such as awareness, treatment, rehabilitation and their integration into society and their aftercare.
With the signing of the conventions and protocols on narcotics and psychotropic substances, Arab countries became interested in applying them, especially with regard to the treatment of addicts.
