Drug addiction growing threat to society: Experts

JAKARTA (JP): Experts say some 1.3 million Indonesians are drug abusers and addicts, inflicting a heavy social and economic burden on the crisis-stricken country.

Asliati Asril, David Djaelani Gordon and his wife Joyce Gordon, speaking in a seminar here on Saturday, also raised alarm due to the rapid increase in total number of addicts.

If one affected person spends some Rp 100,000 (US$12.65) a day to satisfy his addiction, a total amount of Rp 4.745 trillion is then wasted each year on drug abuse by all of the estimated drug addicts, not counting the social economic cost of drug-related diseases such as AIDS.

In Jakarta alone there are 130,000 of them, said David Gordon, an internationally renowned AIDS and drug addiction consultant.

"This number will grow rapidly in the next few years," he said. "The number of people affected by drug-related diseases will also grow. Not only HIV/AIDS, but also other sexually transmitted diseases and hepatitis due to the use of unsterilized syringes."

Asliati, who is a psychiatrist at the Fatmawati Drug Addiction Hospital (RSKO), said her hospital treated 400 addicts in 1995 and 1996.

"The number reached 600 in 1997 and 700 in 1998," she said.

The number of outpatients also increased rapidly, from 1,500 in 1996 to about 4,000 in the first five months of 1999 alone, Asliati said.

Asliati spoke of the difficulties in rehabilitating addicts.

"Drug addicts helping one another, together with the support of relatives and the community, is the best way to recover from an addiction, and to avoid a relapse," said Gordon.

Without a strong drive to be clean, it would only take up to one week for an addict to go back to the habit, he said.

Col. Musana, a psychiatrist at the Mintohardjo Naval Hospital, described the pervasiveness of the drug addiction problem, citing cases where the addicts came from families with strong religious background. (05)