Integrated system needed for drug addicts: Expert

JAKARTA (JP): Noted psychiatrist Dadang Hawari proposed on Saturday an integrated system -- a combination of medical, psychological and religious therapies -- to effectively cure drug addicts and reduce the percentage of relapse.

Dadang said the existing system has failed to provide satisfactory results.

"Many programs offered only focus on the medical aspect. Sometimes, the addicts are caged and made unconscious," he told a seminar here.

The number of drug addicts in the country is reported to be around 1.3 million, with a mortality rate of 17.16 percent.

Meanwhile, drug consumption is reported to be the equivalent of around Rp 100,000 (US$10) to Rp 300,000 per person every day with a total turnover of marketed drugs of between Rp 130 billion and Rp 390 billion daily.

Recent data shows that drugs also caused medical problems among drugs addicts with 53.37 percent of them suffering from lung disease, liver dysfunction 55.10 percent, Hepatitis C 56.63 percent and HIV and AIDS 33.33 percent.

According to Dadang, several hospitals who used the integrated method were able to reduce relapse cases from around 43.9 percent to 12.21 percent.

"In reports of the number of patients who have returned to hospitals for treatment, out of the total of 2,400 patients treated in the hospitals from 1997 until 1999, there were 293 who suffered relapses," he said.

The integrated method is divided into three forms of therapy: medical, psychological and religious.

In the medical therapy, patients are given a major tranquilizer for neuron-transmitter system dysfunction. They are also given analgesic drugs which are nonaddictive, and antidepressants.

Patients and their families also receive counseling and religious therapy according to their beliefs.

"The principle is to seek medical help and God's forgiveness," Dadang said.

There is a high correlation between religion and relapse cases, he added.

"Patients who pray daily only have a 6.83 percent risk of relapse. Patients who pray occasionally have a 21.50 percent risk while for patients who don't pray at all the risk is 71.67 percent," Dadang said.

Influence

According to Dadang, the highest contributing factor to relapse is friends' influence estimated at 58.36 percent, suggestive factor, 23.21 percent and stress, 18.43 percent.

Dadang admitted that the program is rather expensive, ranging from Rp 6 million to Rp 20 million for patients who must undergo treatment in hospitals.

"But those who can't afford hospital treatment can be treated at home and monitored by parents. There is also generic medicine which costs Rp 300,000 to Rp 400,000," he said.

The important thing is, Dadang said, the addicts must stay at home, they must be prohibited from seeing their friends, cannot receive phone calls and must not smoke cigarettes.

"Cigarettes can be a trigger," he said.

Curing drug addicts is certainly not cheap, he added, therefore drug problems should really be overcome.

"With all this data available about drug abuse, I still wonder why the government has yet to take stern action against drug abuse in this country," Dadang said.

He proposed a more powerful body directly under the President so that it would have more authority, like the United States' Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA).

The existing National Drugs Commission Board (BKNN), he said, is not effective and has little authority. (hdn)