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Treatment and Rehabilitation for Drug Addicts

Hasina Hassan Ali

As drug addiction is increase rapidly, its prevention and treatment is very necessary. There are three levels of prevention. Primary prevention includes measures aimed to prevent the onset of drug abuse through education. According to Pinger (1995) “It is a crucial component of comprehensive, community based drug abuse prevention” (p.44). Education can be School based and Community based. School based education is very effective and important. According to Pinger (1995) “School based drug prevention programs that address social influence and are comprehensive in nature have been found to be the most successful in preventing the onset of drug use” (p.46). In addition, the school children learn how to resist pressure from peer and media to use drug. Along with that, they learn how to say no to drug. Furthermore, in order to make the School based drug education program successful, schools, parents, students and communities must work together. Project Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) is one of the school based drug abuse prevention program. On the other hand, Community based drug education takes part in variety of settings and occurs both formally and informally; formal education given in public, religious institution, business, health care facilities or by media through television, radio, movie, newspapers, magazines and advertisements. Beside that, in comparison to School base education, Community based program are some time ineffective because of low participants and lack of interest. In addition, Secondary prevention helps addicted to prevent further damage to their body due to addiction. Treatment comes under this prevention and in which drug dependent individual is evaluated and treated before physical and mental problems become severe. Furthermore, Tertiary prevention includes treatment and rehabilitation. The treatment requires successful rehabilitation to prevent the recovering person from relapse into a former pattern of abuse. Because the majorities of drug dependent patient requires multiple treatment and almost always experience relapses, treatment is usually considered to be tertiary prevention. In addition, Drug treatment services usually include a variety of components, including counseling, drug therapy, educational and vocational services, urine testing, relapse prevention and family, social and community support.

The treatment can be either non residential (out patient) or residential (in patient); half of the patient receiving non residential treatment. They remain in there home and receive treatment. Also it does not disrupt the family members. On the other side, in residential the patients receive treatment in hospital and it is more expensive than non residential. Beside that,there are different methods of treatment. First, detoxification is one method of planned drug dependence withdrawal. It allows for the elimination of drugs from body. Second, support groups, in which drug dependent and recovering individuals come together and help each other in, remain drug free. This strategy is used by Ibtida and Aas Rehabilitation Center in Pakistan. These organizations are working to help those addicts who want to be free from drugs. Third, substitute dependency is one designed to redirect addiction to a less harmful substance and due to this patient progress slowly and free from drug.

In conclusion, there are thousand of rehabilitation centers with many different philosophies, approaches and methods. Among them UNODC and UNAIDS (provisional AIDS program), Anti-Narcotic Force Regional Program, Ibtida, AAs and NEJAT are present in Pakistan. But, it is important to find a comprehensive program for detoxification and drug rehabilitation that matches the addicted person’s individual needs.