Pakistan faces increased drug use, particularly heroin

News Desk

RAWALPINDI: There were more than 6.7 million drug users in Pakistan and 4 million among them were addicts, which was the highest number for any country in the world, stats a curtain-raiser issued by National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) while referring statistics available with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on Tuesday.

More than 800,000 Pakistanis aged between 15 and 64 use heroin regularly. It is also estimated that up to 44 tons of processed heroin is consumed annually in Pakistan, adding Pakistan’s neighboring country Afghanistan produced 9,000 metric tons of opium in 2017 alone and being a land-locked country, drugs produced there are smuggled through its neighbors, including Pakistan.

NUMS’s Psychology Department Associate Professor Dr Zakia Bano said Punjab Social Welfare Department reported early this year that the use of drugs in Pakistan is growing at an alarming level. Substance abuse is a diagnosable, curable disorder and all countries are facing this burning issue, Dr Bano added.

There is a dire need to explore different important aspects of SUDs including, treatment, Co-occurring disorders, prevention, and continuum of care, she stressed.

More than 800,000 Pakistanis aged between 15 and 64 use heroin regularly

NUMS’s Pro Vice Chancellor Academics Maj Gen (Retd) Saleem Ahmad Khan HI (M) said the conference sharing would help in identifying loopholes in the educational institutions where our vulnerable youth have fallen prey to drug addiction which was very much underreported.

 “We are trying to strategize our policy for prevention of drug abuse, especially in our educational institutions. We will be comfortable when all our institutions are free from drug abuse’, the Pro Vice Chancellor said.

He said that was the reason all the stakeholders like Vice Chancellors, psychiatrists, psychologists and representatives of Anti-Narcotics Board have been invited to participate in the international conference.

While giving details on the conference Dr Bano said, the experts hailing from different leading universities and psychology institutes from across the country and abroad, who have done research in various aspects of Substance Use Disorders (SUD), will speak on the occasion.

SUD are chronic diseases due to excessive and uncontrolled intake of drugs spreading fast among Pakistani youth where 64 per cent population is below the age of 29 and 30 per cent between the age of 15 and 29 years, according to the UN Office of Drugs and Crime.

There were around 275 million people using drugs across the world in the last year, while over 36 million of them were suffering drug use disorders, according to the 2021 World Drug Report by UNODC.

SUD are chronic diseases due to excessive and uncontrolled intake of drugs spreading fast among Pakistani youth

The international moot will be a joint venture of NUMS and Phoenix Foundation for Research & Development (PFRD).

Its main focus would be on abuse of the substance(drugs) and its prevention and suggest steps for curbing the spread of drug addiction in the light of proposals coming from both national and international scholars participating in the conference.