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| Drug Abuse |
A good example in applying community care in Egypt is in the prevention of drug abuse. There has been an increase in the abuse of heroin and other narcotics since the early 1980s. Themedia, legislative acts, the General Administration of Drug Combat’s seizures of traffickers, initiation of centers all over Egypt and deployment of social workers, religious people and politicians to educate the masses about the hazards of drug abuse have triggered an interest in psychiatry and mental disorders. Although community care started in the 1960s, active participation exploded with the increase of drug abuse among young people.
The average amount of heroin seized annually is about 100 kilograms. This represents about 10% of the consumption. Therefore, it is safe to assume that 1,000 kilograms are consumed annually (i.e., 1,000,000 grams). If we calculate that the average daily intake is 1/8 to 1/4 gram per addict, we would estimate between 11,000 and 22,000 heroin abusers in Egypt.
An integral part of the work of the National Council for AddressingNarcotics in Egypt was an assessment of the nature of the abused substances. Surveys were conducted among secondary school pupils, male and female university students, and industrial workers regarding their drug habits.
The results revealed that, on average, the most abused substance was nicotine, followed by alcohol, hashish, stimulant drugs, tranquillizers, hypnotics and finally opium. Female university students abused fewer substances than male university students except in the case of tranquillizers and hypnotics where the prevalence was similar.
Understanding the pattern of abuse is crucial for developing any strategy that claims to address the issue. Why is it that people abuse substances in the Egyptian context?
Soueif reports several reasons for the different user categories. For secondary school students, the main reason was as entertainment on happy social occasions and socializing with friends, and the substance used most was hashish. Sedatives and hypnotics were the next most frequently abused substances in situations of physical exhaustion and fatigue, and to cope with psychosocial problems or difficult working conditions as well as at times of studying and exams. For university students, the pattern was relatively similar, with a greater tendency to hard drugs (hashish and opium). Industrial workers tended to use hard drugs for recreation and psychoactive substances to overcome exhaustion and to cope with psychosocial problems.
A gradual increase in the consumption of alcohol has been found among Egyptians, with a prediction that it will be the most common substance of abuse in this century . It is interesting to note that in spite of the fact that alcohol is religiously prohibited in Islamic countries, and despite its availability in Egypt compared to the Gulf countries, incidence of alcohol abuse is much higher in the Gulf where its sale is prohibited.
A survey was carried out in Arab countries regarding the available mental health services, needs
and demands, and the needs for psychiatric education and research in this field. It is obvious that our region is in great need of a mental health act and the implementation of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/119 on the protection of persons with mental illness and the improvement of mental health care, in addition to a change in the medical education curriculum in psychiatry and a campaign to reduce the stigma of mental illness that
involves professionals, media people, and policy makers.
