UAF study: ‘Pharmacies should not sell drugs without prescription’

Injectable drugs preferred because of easy availability, affordable rates.

FAISALABAD:

Medical stores should be required to sell drugs only to people carrying prescriptions signed by registered medical practitioners. This was one of the key recommendations of a study of drug use in Faisalabad released at the University of Agriculture on Saturday.

The study also suggested setting up of rehabilitation centres for addicts in the public-sector to provide treatment facilities to addicts.

It said awareness raising campaigns should be launched to educate the youth about the dangerous habit and later dependence.

The study titled Causes and Complications in Injectable Drug Use in Faisalabad was launched at the UAF on Saturday.

It has been conducted by a team of academics affiliated with the UAF’s Rural Sociology Department. These included Rural Sociology Dean Professor Dr Muhammad Iqbal Zafar, Assistant Professor Zakira Batool, Dr Khalid Mustafa and Arfan Riasat.

Professor Muhammad Iqbal Zafar told The Express Tribune that the study was meant to identify the factors that lead people to use of drugs, particularly those injected through a syringe.  He said the social and economic background of the respondents was explored to understand these factors.

Almost 60 per cent of the addicts interviewed for the study were in their middle-age, 55 per cent said they had no formal schooling.

About 90 per cent of the respondents were men, 57.5 per cent unmarried, 29.4 percent married with up to two dependent children and 17.7 percent married with three to five children. Some 72.5 percent addicts said they lived in a joint family system.

As many as 85 per cent of the respondents said they did not like it when people called them names like jahaz (as in airborn).

The speakers said lack of education and poverty were strongly correlated with drug addiction as majority of the addicts exhibited the two characteristics.

They said most addicts who preferred injectable drugs said they had abandoned other drugs and opted for injectable drugs because these were more easily available and cheaper.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Arfan Riasat said the respondents said they used the same syringe multiple times and also reported having shared a syringe with other addicts. He said they were at a high risk of contracting blood-borne diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis-B and hepatitis-C.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2012.