|
|
SOCIETY-JAPAN: Young Drug Addicts Lack Support
By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Mar 9 (IPS) - Ryo recalls how he started inhaling paint thinner when he was 10 years old, at a time when he was trying to cope after his parents divorced and he was forced to live with his strict Japanese father.
''My mother was from the Philippines and the cultural divide with my father always caused huge arguments at home. When she left me, I was so lonely. I started inhaling paint thinner till I left home and went to the United States to study,'' he recalls.
According to Ryo and volunteers helping drug abusers, there are few programmes to support addicts in Japan despite the growing problem now being reported in the country. Often too, drug abuse is seen as a law and order problem.
Says Makoto Oda of the Asia-Pacific Addiction Research Institution, a non-profit organisation helping abusers: ''Arrests are the norm in Japan but sending addicts to prison is not the solution. Addicts are badly in need of effective rehabilitation care..''
Oda says rehabilitation care in Japan is even poorer than in countries such as Thailand, where use of illegal drugs is high.
Oda is lobbying for medical and psychological counselling for people who are arrested on drug charges and are usually thrown into prisons, then leave only to commit the same offence again.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare declared a crisis in 1998 amid statistics showing that drug abuse was increasing and that Japan was becoming a magnet in the drug trade involving North Korea, China, and Hong Kong.
Activists estimate Japan, a country of 128 million people, now has more than 1.6 million drug abusers, up drastically from 700,000 people in 1994. The highest incidence is among people in their twenties and younger, and is increasing among junior high school and high school students.
The most popular drugs include methamphetamines, or stimulants made from solvents readily available in entertainment areas, followed by marijuana and hashish. The number of users of hard drugs such as heroin is negligible, following a trend international drug agencies have noted in Asia.
But 'ecstasy' and other illegal synthetic narcotic pills are growing in popularity, in part because young people are unaware of the high risks of brain damage. The street price of ecstasy pills, around 38 U.S. dollars, makes it easily affordable by teenagers, say activists.
Police say that in 2003, they seized some 393,000 narcotic tablets, more than double the previous record high of 170,000 the previous year.
However, activists say these worrying trends have only led to the introduction of anti-drugs studies in schools rather than sufficient budgets to care for addicts.
''Youth here are aware of the risks of taking stimulants. What they need is more help. All my lobbying for proper facilities or other help for abusers continues to fall on deaf ears,'' says Kiyoshi Wada, a leading researcher in narcotics and health problems at the National Neurology and Psychiatry Hospital.
Ryo says that when he wanted to quit the drug habit, he did not dare reveal his problem to his father, teachers, or classmates.
''When I was inhaling, I felt happy. But when the rush of good feeling disappeared, I agonised how I was going to deal with my life and found no one to turn to for help,'' he says.
Advocates of stronger programmes also cite their failure, 10 years ago, to save a sixth grade student who killed himself by jumping in front of a truck, apparently after hallucinating.
The boy, who lived with his mother, had been bullied in school and joined a group that introduced him to drugs. He asked for help but could not be taken to the hospital in time.
Mizutani Osawa , a schoolteacher and activist who tried to help at the time, says the boy's case illustrates a similar pattern observed among troubled youth in Japan's affluent society. ''They need love and guidance to resist drugs that have become a solace in today's harsh environment, where adults have no time for them,'' he says.
(END/2004)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What is RSS?
