Sunday Times 2
Inhibitive drugs that lure addicts: Patterns and trends
View(s):This is a text of the 19th Deshamanya Nandadasa Kodagoda Oration delivered by Prof. Ravindra Fernando at the Sri Lanka Foundation on August 2
A drug is a substance when taken into the living organism can modify one or more of its functions. Drug abuse may be defined as the use of a drug, usually by self-administration, in a way different from the approved medical or social patterns in a given culture.
Addiction is a state characterized by behavioural and other responses that always include a compulsion to take the drug on a continuous or periodic basis in order to experience its psychic effects (psychic dependence) and sometimes to avoid the discomfort of its absence (physical dependence).
Prof. Ravindra Fernando
Alcohol
Alcohol has been produced by humans for over 12,000 years! Alcohol causes impaired judgment, decreased inhibitions, coma and even death. Alcohol causes physical and psychological dependence. It affects the liver, heart, pancreas, stomach and brain.
Barbiturate type drugs
Barbiturates are depressants of the brain. It can cause relief of tension, mental stress and anxiety with positive feelings of pleasure, calmness, and relaxation. Overdose can cause coma, respiratory failure and death.
Amphetamine, methamphetamine (Ecstasy) and anti-obesity drugs
Amphetamines have medical uses for attention deficit disorders, narcolepsy and appetite suppressant (slimming pills). Abuse can cause feeling of well-being, euphoria, increased alertness and energy, improvement of performance, and bizarre, erratic and violent behaviour.
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), also known as Ecstasy, is said to increases all pleasurable sensations. Ecstasy is popular among participants of discos and night clubs and users have died suddenly in night clubs.
Cannabis or marijuana or ganja
Cannabis is obtained from the plant of the genus Cannabis.
Cannabis is the only drug that grows in Sri Lanka. It is grown illicitly, mostly in the dry zones of the country (in the Eastern and Southern provinces).
Cannabis causes euphoria, “high” feeling, pleasurable state of relaxation, impaired performance, sleepiness, confusion and hallucinations.
Cocaine
Cocaine, which is obtained from the plant of genus Erythroxylon coca, is available as a paste, or “Crack” – hard white rocks or flaky material. Cocaine is smoked, sniffed or injected.
It causes euphoria and alertness and postpones hunger and fatigue.
Hallucinogens (LSD or Lysergic acid diethylamide, certain mushrooms)
Hallucinogens such as LSD, mescaline (peyote cactus), psilocybin, a mushroom, cause altered state of consciousness and auditory/visual perceptions.
My first experience with mushrooms was when a beautiful girl’s body was found in the Brighton cemetery in England. Her boyfriend when arrested confessed that they had a violent argument after eating magic mushroom at a restaurant that resulted in her violent death. A post-mortem examination confirmed the presence of mushroom in her stomach.
Early this year chocolates containing cocaine were detected in Colombo and Galle.
Khat type
These are derivatives of the plant Catha edulis. In 2014, a Sri Lankan arriving from Kenya was arrested at the airport by Customs for trying to smuggle in 50 kg of “Khat” plants concealed in two bags. Khat is believed to have been brought to be smuggled to Canada. It is a plant native to the horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
Opiates
Opiates derived from the plant Papaver somniferum have many alkaloids including morphine. Heroin is a substance synthesized from morphine. Opium is used in the ayurveda (indigenous) medical pharmacopeia and the government makes it available to Ayurveda Medical Practitioners.
Addiction to heroin causes serious withdrawal symptoms when heroin is not present in blood.
Volatile solvents
The deliberate inhalation of volatile solvents and aerosols, such as lighter fluid is an increasing problem worldwide.
Pharmaceuticals such as benzodiazepines and new psychoactive substances
Pharmaceuticals like diazepam or valium and some new psychoactive substances such as piperazines, arylamines, tryptamines and synthetic cathinones are addictive.
Tobacco products
All tobacco products are addictive.
Opium figures in most pharmacopoeias of the East and the West, but its sinister reputation as a narcotic has overshadowed its medicinal properties. The earliest reference to its medicinal properties is in Yogaratnakara, an Ayurvedic book written in Sinhala verse in the sixteenth century.
During Portuguese occupation in Sri Lanka from 1505, restriction of opium availability was considered one way of manipulating the country. In 1675 the Dutch issued a proclamation prohibiting public trafficking in, among others, salt and opium.
In 1815, the British East India Company took over the administration of Ceylon, all import duties were suspended except those on arrack, and opium.
A bill was passed in 1929 as Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance No.17 but not proclaimed on anticipating difficulties in implementation. In 1935 the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance was amended.
In Sri Lanka, major illicit drugs used today are cannabis and heroin. Heroin is the second largest and the most commonly consumed opiate in Sri Lanka. Heroin has become a major health and social problem in the country.
Pharmaceutical drug abuse has recently gained popularity in Sri Lanka and is becoming a major health concern. Controlled pharmaceutical drugs abused in Sri Lanka includes narcotics such as opiates, codeine containing cough syrups, depressants such as benzodiazepines.
The “United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem” held from 19th to 21st April 2016 adopted a new framework putting people at the centre of global policies on drug control, which the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says can help promote the “urgent, united and concerted action we need.”
“Putting people first means reaffirming the cornerstone principles of the global drug control system, and the emphasis on the health and welfare of humankind that is the founding purpose of the international drug conventions,” the Executive Director of UNODC, Yury Fedotov, told delegates.
During the last five years 114 foreigners were arrested in Sri Lanka for offences related to drugs. Of them 46% were Pakistanis and 19% were Indians.
A Singaporean, ten Iranians, two Pakistanis and one Indian were among the 14 foreigners detained in Sri Lanka in April for smuggling over 110 kgs of heroin worth US$7.5 million seized from an Iranian fishing trawler.
On 20th July, a large consignment of cocaine, 274 kgs, has been discovered inside a container of sugar at the container yard in Peliyagoda. The police estimate the total value of the seized drugs to be over Rs. 4 billion.
The National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB), established in 1984, is the pioneer Government Institution which discharges its functions with an aim to eradicate the drug menace from Sri Lanka. Among the other functions, providing treatment to the drug dependents and rehabilitation of drug dependents are main roles of the NDDCB. Four treatment and rehabilitation centers are being conducted under the purview of the Board throughout the country. Counseling service and residential treatment facilities are being provided for the drug addicts at these treatment centers.
To further enhance the efforts of drug abuse prevention, the President established a Presidential Task force on Drug Prevention in 2015.
“The overall goal of the Government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka in relation to the problem of drug abuse is to reduce supply and use to the barest minimum while working towards its total elimination from the society hopefully by the year 2020.”
The fight against drugs is not easy. Even in countries where the death penalty is enforced for drug smuggling, drug trafficking continues. Sri Lanka does not enforce the death penalty although it is in the law.
President Rodrigo Duterte, the new leader of the Philippines, has a novel method to curb the demand and supply of drugs. “Kill off drug dealers” is his solution. In the weeks following his victory police went on a rampage and murdered more than 100 people, mostly drug dealers. Thousands surrendered to the police due to fear. In Sri Lanka, as a democratic country that values principles of human rights, this solution is unacceptable.
I wish to conclude this oration with a statement by Kofi Annan, a former UN Secretary-General. He said, “Illicit drugs destroy innumerable individual lives and undermine our societies. Confronting the illicit trade in drugs and its effects remains a major challenge for the international community.”