A shocking report was published in the Dhaka Tribune in 2019 revealing 7.5 million of Bangladesh population are drug addicted. “Among them, 80% are youth, of whom, 50% are involved in various criminal activities.”
Of the total, 48% of drug addicts are educated and 40% are uneducated. Around 57% are sex offenders, while 7% are infected by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
Among the addicted population, 43% of females take yaba pills. Poor women and street children are engaged in selling and transporting different types of drugs.
Prof Arup Ratan Chowdhury founder of MANAS Association said: “Around 1, 60,000 drug traders are operating their business across the country. Among them 27,300 are women.”, drug traders have increased by 29,990 in the last one year,”
Quoting the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh(ICDDR,B), survey, he said: “A drug user spends around Taka 56,560 to Taka 90,800 in a year. 7.5 million drug addicts spend about Taka 50,000 crore annually.
In my personal experience in 2005 in my Masters degree research project at Dhaka University I spoke with drug addicted young boys at Segun Bagicha drug addiction treatment centre, many of the boys introduced with drug at school with their fellow classmate, initially they had taken it for curiosity and later fell in trap of the addiction and became a permanent client of drug world.
But why are more and more people getting drug addicted and what actually the government is doing? Well the result shows no appropriate action in place. Yearly million of money allocated for drug control but the outcome is zero. The question is where the money goes. The authority who is supposed to do the job is ineffective means they actually let it flow. It’s a shame that the government fails to make its relevant body accountable for the job and the government itself fails on its responsibility to the public. The only way the general public can be accountable to the government is in the general election which is very very far, on the other hand problems are getting more and more complex.