P1 B to rehab addicts? 22 times more needed

The government is to spend P1 billion this year to rehabilitate drug dependents. The health department will use it to help overfilled clinics of provincial and city halls. That amount sorely is insufficient.

Conservative figures are being cited. The Dangerous Drugs Board estimates 1.8 million addicts nationwide. One percent, or 18,000, supposedly need in-patient treatment. That is, six to 12 months’ rehab. Since the 20 local government-run rehab centers can handle only 5,000 in-patients at a time, the P1 billion would be to triple their capacity.

The drug menace likely is far worse. The 1.8-million calculation was made way back in 2002, when Congress was deliberating on the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act. A decade and a half hence, drug abusers are believed to have doubled to 3.6 million.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency reports that nine in ten barangays in Metro Manila are “drug influenced.” Another third of those in other regions likewise teem with pushers and addicts.

Recent news indicate the enormity of the drug problem. Terrified by the killings of narco-traders, addicts are surrendering by the thousands from the slums. Nearly all are habitual drug takers; party users think themselves not hooked enough to seek professional help. Most of them also are penurious; rich addicts quietly are committed by their families to specialty care homes. (Toll, July 1-22: 221 killed, 114,833 surrendered, 3,014 arrested.)

Barangay officers are unprepared for the influx of confessed addicts. The latter are just listed down, then sent home till the government doctor comes. A good number do not show up anymore for evaluation if in need of mere out-patient counseling or in-clinic treatment.

Health Sec. Paulyn Jean B. Rosell-Ubial rightly takes on the rehab challenge at the community level. Her aim is to search out the addicts for proper “care.” That four-letter word has immense meaning, ranging from medical intervention and psychiatric therapy to skills training and post-rehab reintegration to “normal society.”

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Studies show that one of every three persons who try “shabu” (meth) ends up addicted. They are the one in three persons who happen to have high levels of dopamine, the body substance responsible for craving. (When mere sight or scent of your favorite dish makes you seem to taste it, that’s your dopamine at work.)

About a fourth of addicts come from the lower classes, and can’t afford prolonged rehab. In-patient treatment in private resort-clinics can cost as much as P2,500 a day. Those efficiently run by local governments, like Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte’s in Quezon City, get by with P350 per patient per day. That includes food, medication, professional services, and utilities.

From there health officials can do the budgeting math:

• 3.6 million frequent drug users, of whom one-third or 1.2 million are hooked, and again of whom one-fourth or 300,000 cannot afford private rehab;

• 300,000 penurious in-patients x P350 per day = P105 million;

• P105 million x 183 days (six months minimum) = P19.215 billion for rehab alone;

• Add to that the rush construction of rehab facilities, at P150 million each in 18 administrative regions = P2.7 billion;

• Grand total of P21.915 billion to lick the addiction problem before it multiplies further.

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Party users, meanwhile, would need out-patient counseling. Here the government can solicit the help of medical and religious groups.

Studies further show that effective rehabs are spiritual-based. Whether Muslim, Buddhist, or Christian in orientation, God-centered therapies strengthen will power, restore self-respect, and heal broken relationships. In the Philippines, church parishes can be harnessed to help in Alcoholics Anonymous-type of kicking the drug habit. Lay leaders can be trained to lead the twice- or thrice-weekly sessions.

It had been tried before, in the early 2000s, in several parishes in Cebu-Bohol, under the care of Catholic Cardinal Ricardo Vidal.

Perhaps the Church and the State can work together to save society from the drug scourge.

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