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New approach in fight against drugs |21 February 2017

 

 

 

The Secretary of State for Drug Rehabilitation Dr Patrick Herminie has said that the drug addiction is a chronic medical problem which has to be solved medically.

The former Speaker of the National Assembly who has described the situation as “an unprecedented epidemic with frightening figures which is destroying the fabric of our society” was speaking at a press conference in his office in the Oliaji Trade Centre yesterday morning. The press conference followed President Danny Faure’s State-of-the-nation Address (SONA) delivered on February 14, where he had promised that the Secretary of State would announce immediate measures in the fight against drug trafficking and consumption.

The secretariat was created in order to bring drug prevention and rehabilitation under one coordinated body. It has been announced that the Drugs and Alcohol Council (Dac) will also fall under the body.

“Drug consumers are not addicts but people with substantive disorder,” stated Dr Herminie, before going on to comment that “drug addiction is a chronic medical problem which has to be dealt with medically”.

Added to the harm reduction programme already in place and which includes needle exchange, the new approach will be what Dr Herminie has called a “Seychellois owned multidisciplinary and multidimensional vertical programme”. It will involve the two components of demand reduction and supply reduction. The first will be through education and rehabilitation and the second via the application of the Law and the work done by the National Drugs Enforcement Agency (NDEA). The strategy he says is a “de-normalisation of drug use through education”. This he adds can follow the example of turtle meat consumption whereby through an effective campaign, people have become conscious of the danger brought by the practice.

Pressing actions which the Secretary of State says will complement those of the Committee for Awareness, Resilience and Education (Care) will include a four- week residential de-intoxication programme at the Wellness Centre and on Coetivy Island, as well as one for women on Praslin. The reintegration or after care phase will involve sensitising the community before the patients follow a 12- week community programme where they will be offered a job with a salary.

Government has announced that it is currently in negotiation with a South African group for the construction of a modern wellness centre with all necessary facilities.  As there is the risk of pregnant women on drugs passing on psychological problems to their child, an antenatal rehabilitation programme will also be introduced.

Dr Herminie has stressed on the importance of following the comprehensive programme where much emphasis will be put on discipline, as he says when the patient leaves the Wellness Centre he or she is still mentally sick. So to avoid relapse he explains, it is necessary for their brain to move from an addicted to normal condition.

Seychelles’ new approach in the fight against drugs matches what experts have been saying for many years now: That in order to find a solution to the drugs problem, drug addiction has to in the first place be considered as an illness and treated as any other form of disease.

Back in November 2013 during a capacity-building workshop on drug dependence treatment at the Méridiens Barbarons Hotel, Dr Karim Dar, a consultant addiction psychiatrist at the National Health Services of West and Central London, had described drug addiction as a public health issue. He went on to explain that this,  along with considering the dependency as preventable and treatable rather than as a complete moral failure, were the first steps in understanding how to tackle the problem from a public health perspective.

Until recently, the “Support Don’t Punish Campaign” initiative of the HIV/Aids Support Organisation (Haso) calling for society to come in aid of drug addicts and not marginalise and punish them was met with skepticism by many. This had also been the case for the Ministry of Health’s Harm Reduction Programme. Comments on social media had wrongly gone to the extent of assuming that the programmes would result in more consumption and increase in the spread of diseases like HIV/Aids and Hepatitis C.

Has the mindset changed now that a public health specialist has been named by President Danny Faure as the Secretary of State for Drug Rehabilitation? Time will surely tell. In the mean time, Dr Herminie has talked with passion and expertise about the problem, announcing what he has called a new “comprehensive and holistic approach”.

It is estimated that about between 4000 to 8000 young persons, of whom 95% are males, are current drug users, with about 800 of them injecting the substance in their veins. Only 500 are currently on a rehabilitation programme which they access either voluntarily or through Court Order, after committing a drug related offence.

“The drug problem is not only the problem of Corgat Estate and Les Mamelles. You will be shocked by the types of families affected by the scourge. Some of them are families with university graduates. Many mothers are crying and they can come from any family,” Dr Herminie has commented.

The Secretary of State for Drug Rehabilitation has given himself three years to put into place the system with all elements necessary to deal with the problem, time during which he adds we should “start somewhere and fight with the tools we have”.

“The drug problem will be there for many years to come. We must put into place a programme to mitigate any adverse effects that it can cause. I do not say we will resolve the problem in three years. But the period will permit to give us an idea of long-term solutions,” he concluded.

In the short-term, he hopes that the new measures will at least relieve the community of crimes such as theft committed by drug victims.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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