Do Cyprus drug users stand any chance of rehabilitation?
It is not usually my habit to write for two weeks in a row on the same subject. However, with two drug-related deaths taking place within a few days of each other and the ombudswoman’s very critical report on the welfare services’ policy on drug addicts in Cyprus, I think I can be excused for focusing on the issue again (I promise to write about something lighter next week).
Also, even though, as I wrote last week, I have never taken drugs myself, my interest in the subject is not only professional but also personal. As a 20-year-old law student in Warsaw I used to practice tai chi chuan, a soft martial art that I myself defined as “meditation in movement”. The group I exercised with consisted of about 20 people, mostly other students. But there were also several other guys there, quite different from the rest – the patients of one of several residential rehabilitation centres for drug addicts based near Warsaw who practiced as part of their treatment.
I still remember them very well. They were in their early 30s, well-built due to the hard physical work they had to perform every day during their rehabilitation programme, absolutely teetotal and non smoking. They were also really nice guys, well-read and intelligent. One was an ex-student of Poland’s prestigious Lodz Film Academy, the second had once dreamt about becoming a writer, the third just wanted to find a girlfriend, make love and start a family.
Needless to say, they all became my friends. I kept in touch with them for the next few years. I watched them finish their two-year rehabilitation, get out of the centre, find jobs, meet girls. I also saw them gradually drink more and more and admitting that for them alcohol was the best way to replace ‘compot’, the Polish version of heroin they still missed, not physically but on a much more dangerous, psychological level. Then one fatal summer, just after celebrating their seventh heroin-free anniversary (at that time, experts claimed a person who hadn’t taken for seven years was officially healed), they all started taking again. Seven years! Nowadays, Dr Kyriacos Veresies of the Veresies Clinic that treats both alcohol and drug addicts says it is more like 15. He says: “A former heroin user has to be subject to continuous support and follow up for 10 to 15 years.” But these guys didn’t have support for 15 years, and neither do drug addicts who want to give up the habit in Cyprus.
Yes, the island has a 15-page-long National Anti-Drug Strategy 2004-2008, compiled by the Cyprus Anti-Drug Council, that is very nicely written and, I guess, was produced just before or after EU accession. In the chapter ‘Treatment And Social Reintegration’ it says (I am going to quote it extensively to share with you the professionalism with which it was written):
“The goal of the Strategy is to ensure that each citizen has access to all treatment and social rehabilitation services. These services, whether they belong to the public or to the private sector, will be upgraded and diversified so as to offer adequate, appropriate and specialised treatment. The network will be based on the principles of universal care and free access to treatment in conjunction with the provisions of the national health care system. Treatment and social reintegration programmes will be based on a multidisciplinary approach following standardised intervention criteria and ensuring the provision of professional treatment. Special emphasis will be given to the implementation of educational and vocational training programmes for drug addicts under treatment. Our objectives are: 1) To guarantee universal access to treatment and social reintegration programmes; 2) To ensure that women will have access to programmes corresponding to their needs; 3) To keep a register in every treatment centre allowing for an accurate data collection; 4) To ensure that the integrated treatment network will include, apart from the general health and youth services, specialised inpatient and outpatient facilities such as counselling, detoxification, treatment and rehabilitation centres and communities; 5) To provide for special facilities and programmes for imprisoned drug addicts; 6) To further promote treatment and rehabilitation programmes alternative to imprisonment; 7) To provide adequate support structures and networks to offer opportunities for the social reintegration of drug dependants; 8) To provide adequate treatment for other health problems of drug users such as mental illnesses and infectious diseases.”
It sounds good, doesn’t it? Great. But today, I have gone through about 60 pages of articles on drug problem in Cyprus and spoken to some experts and can say only one thing: at the moment “the adequate, appropriate and specialised treatment” on the island translates into more or less 60 functioning beds available in detox and rehabilitation centres (both state-run and private), several outpatient support centres, a very limited number of personnel adequately trained to deal with the problem (none of those in the welfare services, as far as I know), and thousands of unkept promises. So no wonder that the situation gets worse every day.
??
??
??
??
