When Rehabilitation Centres Become Torture Chambers

DRUG addiction is not a crime, it is a disease. Drug rehabilitation centres are supposed to be the last resort for bringing individuals suffering from this condition back to a healthy life. However, the horrifying and shocking picture revealed one utterly appalled.

Over five hundred commercial centres have sprung up across the country, including the capital, leveraging the names of rehabilitation centres. The vast majority of these is illegal and exist merely in name.

Under the guise of providing care, they are engaged in abuse, financial exploitation, and even drug trafficking! Instead of offering humane treatment, these establishments have transformed into centres of torture. It is imperative to put a stop to such activities.

A newspaper report has exemplified the pervasive state of lawlessness found in most private rehabilitation centres.

Admitting patients without any medical assessment, keeping them in a semi-conscious state through the administration of unidentified drugs, isolating them from their families within inhumane, confined environments, and extorting exorbitant sums of money, this amounts to blatant fraud masquerading as care.

Even more alarming is the fact that special teams known as “catching parties” are being hired to detain even mentally sound individuals, branding them as drug addicts, amidst family or property disputes.

In other words, it has become possible to imprison anyone in these clandestine facilities in exchange for money.

Such a perversion of medical care and such heinous criminal activity cannot be tolerated in any civilized society.

Experts say, treating drug addiction requires appropriate medication, mental health care, and scientific counselling.

Confinement or physical abuse can never be part of the treatment; instead, such practices cause patients to lose their mental balance and suffer from even more severe illness.

At a time when the proliferation of dangerous drugs like Yaba and Ice is exposing adolescents and young adults to serious risks, such as heart disease and mental disorders, the abusive practices at these rehabilitation centres are further exacerbating the situation.

Although our state policy advocates a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach towards drugs, a lack of oversight is evident in reality.

Lax surveillance by the Department of Narcotics Control and relevant law enforcement agencies has allowed these institutions to increasingly transform into ‘money-making machines’ and hubs of criminal syndicates.

It is imperative to simultaneously increase the number of modern rehabilitation centres in the public sector and ensure regular surprise audits of legitimate private facilities.

Curbing the menace of drug abuse within rehabilitation centres is impossible without coordinated action involving law enforcement agencies, the health department, and civil society.

Let these clandestine prisons, operating under the guise of care services, be eradicated once and for all.