Drug addiction therapy costly

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Therapy for drug addicts is a complicated process which takes a long time and costs a lot of money with no guarantee that the recovering addicts will be able to stay off drugs, experts say.

A patient needs to undergo a rapid detoxification process, which lasts between four and six hours, and then take pure opiate antagonist pills for the whole year, according to Rinaldi Nizar of the Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital (RSCM) in Central Jakarta.

Rinaldi told a seminar here last week said that a patient would have to pay up to Rp 5 million for the detoxification process, while the pills, one of which should be taken each day, cost Rp 22,000 each.

Charles E. Damping, a psychiatrist from the University of Indonesia (UI), added that weekly counseling was also required.

"The doctor's counseling fee ranges from Rp 35,000 to Rp 50,000 every week," he said.

While the experts differed about the success rate of the therapy, they all agreed that there is a high dropout rate from the therapy process.

Sunarno of the Graha Medika hospital in West Jakarta said that 70 percent of drug addicts quit the therapy before the process is completed.

Charles estimated that half of his patients completed the entire therapy process.

Jesse A. Montja, head of the antidrug working group at the national education ministry, said that no comprehensive studies had been conducted in Indonesia on the effectiveness of drug therapy, but nearly all rehabilitation centers had problems with the dropout rate.

"Relapse is a major problem in all rehabilitation centers in Indonesia," he explained.

Charles said that whether a patient would complete the therapy depended on his environment. Therefore, the family had an important role to play in controlling and motivating recovering addicts.

"The fact that is quite easy to get drugs here also plays a major (negative) role in the success of therapy," he said.

While there is no accurate data about drug addiction in the country, drug activist Henry Yosodiningrat estimated that the number could reach four million people.

Most of them are young people, including students, in urban areas.