Integrated system needed for drug addicts: Expert
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)