Bangladesh: The drug triangle - The poor as collateral damage

Dhaka Tribune, September 10, 2013

The drug triangle: The poor as collateral damage

[by] Shaher Zaidi

‘The vulnerability of Bangladesh to drug trafficking and use is further enhanced by its geographical location and porous border with India and Myanmar … In 1996, it was reported that 5% of world’s illicit drug trafficking is routed through Bangladesh’

Slum children sniffing glue on a road divider
Photo- Syed Zakir Hossain/Dhaka Tribune

Afsan Chowdhury recently posed this question: “At the Bdnews roundtable on the Oishee incident and the role of media and police, some people said that addiction was much more in the English medium schools … How much of this is perceptional and how much real?â€

This is a common misperception in many social circles: “Drug khor (addict) = English medium,†ergo, a “western,†“imported†problem. If only we could return to the halcyon, “pure,†traditional ways, everything will come back to normal.

I expect there to also be appeals to religious revivalism as a bulwark against addiction – just check Pakistan’s heroin addiction levels, or the illicit drug trade in Iran, to determine whether a “more Islamist†politics has worked in this regard.

The reality, as I have come to know through activist friends who work on addiction issues, is a lot more complicated. According to their research, drug addiction is widespread at all levels of Dhaka society, from “English Medium†to “bostibashi (slum dwellers).†The longer we keep obfuscating, and seek comforting explanations such as “Western oriented,†the more the crisis will grow.

Some segments of the Bangladeshi law enforcement is compromised by linkages with the drug mafia. That is how the goods enter the country, and are manufactured inside the country, without jhamela (hassle). Now with the Oishee case, remand, forced confession, a public baying for punishment, all of it serves to move attention away from the supply chain.

One does not require wealth to acquire hard drugs in Bangladesh. A few years back, Prothom Alo ran a story of the epidemic of bosti (slum) children in Chittagong sniffing glue – extracted from shoes and bike tires – to get high. This is not a high-end drug.

People, even at very lowest end of the economic spectrum, are using whatever little money they have to obtain a variety of drugs. The difference is that the rich can eventually send their children to Bangkok for rehabilitation, while the bosti child will die of an overdose of cheap drugs and no one will even know, let alone start a Facebook page.

Researcher and PhD candidate at City University of New York Nayma Qayum argues: “There is the issue of the drug trade itself – control, stakeholders, mechanisms and processes. While travelling for work, I remember coming across these points by the border that locals would identify as trafficking points or storage warehouses. Locals are sometimes involved because of a dearth of livelihood opportunities.

“The second issue is that of the entire adolescent/young-adult experience. A combination of various factors come into play here – dearth of quality education, the absence of a real childhood experience (even in the eighties I had a bit of a childhood in Dhaka, I don’t think that is possible anymore), anxieties regarding the future (where they are seeing their preceding generation struggle to make a life well into their thirties), and lack of support for emotional or psychological issues.â€

What the statistics say

Mahboob Hasan’s 2005 study needs updating, but based on the data there, the majority of drug users in Bangladesh are either illiterate or semi-literate, earn an average of Tk4,000, work in semi-independent small businesses or are unemployed, and come from working class tier.

A few key excerpts from his report are relevant here:

“The vulnerability of Bangladesh to drug trafficking and use is further enhanced by its geographical location and porous border with India and Myanmar … In 1996, it was reported that 5% of world’s illicit drug trafficking is routed through Bangladesh.

“There are more than 400,000 children living in streets of the major cities of Bangladesh highly vulnerable to various kinds of physical, sexual, verbal and mental abuse … It was also reported that drug trafficking gangs lure these children with expensive drugs to commit crimes.

“A recent report revealed that 60% street children who use drugs began to take drugs at the age of 13 years and currently there is no specialised treatment available for these children.

“In 2002/2003 baseline survey of street children belonging to 11 to 14 years revealed many of them involved in drug-peddling and commercial sex work and about 2% use drugs.

“About one in three of surveyed drug users are illiterate and about six or seven out of ten has different levels of formal education. RSAs in 20 districts in 2004 reported that when compared to injection drug users (18%), illiteracy rate among heroin smokers are higher (34%).

“Although most drug users have some form of occupation, many have modest to poor income. Studies indicate that majority of the surveyed drug users have monthly income between Tk1,000 to Tk4,000. Different studies also indicate that 5% to 18% of the drug users earn less than Tk50 per day.

“Most of the surveyed drug users are involved in some form of income-generating small to medium businesses, rickshaw pullers and those working in transport sectors, like bus/truck drivers, helper/conductors, mechanics etc. Unemployment is also high (9 to 22%). Studies also indicate that about 1-8% of the drug users are involved in some form of illegal activities, which also include drug peddling.

A neighbour’s story …

A Dhanmondi neighbour experienced dealing with a drug addict up close. Five years back, the mother caught their car driver in the quarter above their garage taking a powder. He immediately said that it was medicine, but she knew it was not. For a few months, the family had observed that whenever the car was parked somewhere for as little as ten minutes, he would fall into a deep sleep from which he would not wake easily.

The lady of the house gave him an ultimatum, and for few months he seemed to be clean. Then again, he started being dhuludhulu (droopy) eyed, sleepy all the time. Around the same time, strange white spots also started appearing on his neck. His hair started to fall out. He was in his mid-thirties.

This man had been with the family for 10 years. They really liked him and wanted to help him. Finally, after three years of this, from desperation that he would lose his whole life, he asked his wife and two children to come from village and live with him in Dhaka, so he would not be tempted to addiction.

Also, during this period of addiction, there were always scandals with other women, and his wife would call and shout at him on the phone while he was driving the car.

Now this man had come to Dhaka to make enough money as a driver to support his wife and child back in the village. His food and housing was taken care of; he was supposed to send money home to the village.

He worked hard and was always in the house. Only in the afternoon, he would take a break to go for a walk by Dhanmondi Lake. The evening was usually his. Where did he first meet the drug dealer? In Dhanmondi Lake or somewhere else? There were rumours that right next to the local mosque was a drug akhra (den).

The same beggars who would line up for alms after prayers were rumoured to carry packets of drugs for sale in their begging cart.

A few questions occurred to me when I heard this story. When did the driver first start sending less money home? When did he stop sending money altogether? How long did his wife live without any money in the village? Is he ok now? How destroyed is his liver? Will he ever kick the addiction? Can people really go cold turkey without the help of clinics?

Indigenous herbal vs toxic synthetics

No hard/synthetic drug in the history of the world has ever stayed limited to the upper or middle class. The dealers sample along the way, and share with their friends. The “mules†that bring drugs in and out of the country for their powerful and wealthy bosses are partially (though not entirely) working class. They also try it and get hooked. Often they get paid for their services in goods, not money – much easier to control their loyalty that way.

A blogger with AlalODulal.org has done some preliminary research about some of the cheaper drugs used by working class communities in Bangladesh. She told me: “Gul is very common among housemaids, in bostis. It gives extra energy.

“Street kids and ferry boys in train stations sniff glue. It is common in Kamalapur train station. The police are involved in this trade. The glue is shoe glue, used by all shoe repair men, and many garment and other product makers.

“The primary ingredient is “toluene,†a neurotoxin. The fumes are highly addictive, and the effect nearly instantaneous. The glue is inhaled, not as some assume, because the sniffer merely wants ‘a high.’

“The fumes reduce one’s concept of reality, minimises fear, and nearly eliminates pain. The glue is usually, at least initially, sniffed to alleviate hunger pains, and/or to tolerate cold weather or other physical ills.â€

Not all narcotics are equally dangerous or addictive. Certain herbal substances, such as marijuana, has existed in our culture for centuries. They have become part of cultural expressions, and have inspired great creativity.

If you watch Tareque Masud’s first film “Adam Surat†about legendary artist Sultan and his village milieu, you see a vibrant cultural scene that existed in Jessore as a gentle, creative, free-flowing expression where marijuana was a positive element, not a negative.

In the United States, recognition that not all narcotics are equally dangerous has led to the recent legalisation of marijuana in Colorado and Washington. Use of marijuana for medical purposes has been legalised in 21 US states.

There is a growing recognition that it is better to allow marijuana to be legal, and tax and monitor its usage, while continuing to maintain bans on harmful synthetic drugs. Of course, any narcotic in excess can cause harm, but certain narcotics are far more prone to such abuse and addiction.

Synthetic drugs, which are chemically created in a laboratory (which can be high-end or cheap), and intentionally very different from indigenous herbal substances such as marijuana, are a very different category.

Their side effects are far more dangerous and unpredictable. With every synthetic drug, there is also a cheap knockoff – which is what really hooks the poor. And the cheaper synthetic imitation is usually hundred times more dangerous than the original substance.

In the United States, the poor African-American and working class White communities have been ravaged by the cheaper second-cousin of the original expensive drugs such as cocaine and heroine – crack for the African-American community, and crystal meth for working class white communities. However, all these lines are getting blurred as things keep bleeding back and forth.

In Bangladesh, it is the working class of the cities that are paying the largest price. They are the full spectrum of collateral damage. However, it is only an Oishee case, in an upper middle class family, with a police officer father, which causes the middle class to go into crisis (also known as talk show and seminar) mode.

Through all this, their focus is still on their own class interests. Now there will be a flurry of new expensive addiction clinics opening in Dhaka. There will be more flights to Bangkok and Delhi to cure addicted children. But who will solve the crisis of addiction in the working class?

Last updated on September 10, 2013 at 22:07