Statistics

Community Rehabilitation

Follow up of cohorts of clients who joined community rehabilitation during each of the years 2003 to 2006:

	2003	2004	2005	2006
Total number in the cohort who joined community rehabilitation that year	138	101	127	43
Of the cohort number who have been released till now after completing treatment	112	62	15	0
Of cohort number who were terminated from treatment and handed over to police	16	13	17	0
Of cohort number who are still continuing in  community till now	10	26	95	43

 

Residential rehabilitation

Rehabilitation The Drug Rehabilitation Center (DRC) in Himmafushi had an initial capacity of 150. It is currently being expanded to add a further 200 beds, nearly half of which are now functional. As shown in the table below and a total of 116 clients were admitted to the DRC in 2004, out of which only 10 were women.

Client status in the Drug Rehabilitation Center (DRC), by sex, 2003-2004:

	2003			2004
	All	Male	Female	All	Male	Female
Clients admitted to DRC	125	118	7	116	106	10
Clients joining   Community phase	138	134	4	101	95	6
Treatment  Completed	163	154	9	98	97	1
Dropped out of treatment	47	45	2	27	23	4

(Note: The numbers do not add up because they refer to different cohorts)

 

The following table shows reported cases of drug abuse in the period 1997-2004. Though the number of reported cases of drug abuse was 697 in 2004, it is merely the tip of the iceberg.  The number of unreported cases would certainly be greater.

 

Reported cases of drug abuse, by age group, 1997-2004

Year	Total	<16	16-24	25-39	40+
1997	200	16	118	65	1
1998	320	26	196	93	5
1999	208	15	118	70	4
2000	220	9	129	76	6
2001	216	2	123	87	4
2002	302	8	168	119	7
2003	125	1	80	40	3
2004	116	4	63	44	1

 Current situation of drug abuse

Direct estimation of the number of drug abusers is difficult and unreliable. Most addicts are unlikely to give true information on their habit because of the possibility of being reported to the authorities.  Thus this figure is usually estimated indirectly using a formula that has two variables: (1) number of arrests made by the police and (2) the percentage of addicts being arrested.   Of these (1) is easily available from police records.  (2) is estimated by asking a number of addicts how many other addicts are in their group and of them what fraction have been arrested. 

Using the above method and based on information provided by clients of NNCB, it is estimated that there are between 2000 and 3000 severe addicts in the country.

Findings of Rapid Situation Assessment 2003

A Rapid Situation Assessment (RSA) done in 2003 revealed the seriousness of the drug situation, justifying its label as the most serious problem facing the nation. Based on information from about 4,000 individuals, the RSA revealed that the most common drugs of initiation were heroin (43%) and cannabinoids (34%). The most commonly abused drug at the during the month preceding the survey were opioids (76%) and cannabinoids (12%). The drug abuse habit started as early as at16.8 years of age. The overwhelming majority of the drug abusers were male (97%). Only 8% reported intravenous drug abuse. The interviewees gave several reasons for starting drugs, of which peer pressure was the most common followed by a desire to experiment.