PESHAWAR, Oct 15: UN agencies have decided to carry out a survey in Afghan refugee camps inhabited by Uzbek people in the Nowshera district to determine cases of drug addiction, officials said.

“A two-day survey would be conducted by the World Health Organization in collaboration with the UNHCR and the UNODC by the end of this month in the Tajik-populated camps near Akora Khattak in the Nowshera district,” said WHO’s Peshawar-based Emergency Medical Officer Dr Quaid Saeed.

According to him, the problem of drug addiction had assumed alarming proportions in the refugee camps where women engaged in carpet weaving regularly consumed opium to get relief from the backache caused by the hard work.

These women also gave their children a dose of opium to keep them asleep so that they (mothers) could concentrate on their work.

Dr Quaid Saeed said a questionnaire had been prepared which would be filled during the survey to be conducted by trained community health workers to ascertain the magnitude of the problem.

A report recently published by the United Nations Office for Drug Control (UNODC) had linked the rising problem of drug addiction among Afghan refugees with unemployment, poverty and prolonged war in Afghanistan.

Use of drugs and economic problems have also compelled these refugees to indulge in anti-social practices, like prostitution and thefts.

Dr Quaid Saeed said the survey would be carried out in refugee camp No. 1, II and III at Akora Khattak, respectively.

A comparative survey has also been planned in one of the non-Tajik camps, like Shamshatoo near Peshawar. He said the problem of drugs among the Tajiks was so acute that now they had started using cocktails of tranquillisers and opium.

The UNODC’s report has pointed out that extreme impoverishment, high unemployment, social displacement, war-related mental health problems, lack of drug-related information, increased supply and availability of drugs and their affordability are the indicators of increasing drug use among the Afghan refugees.

“About 50 per cent of the people use hashish, 10 per cent misuse pharmaceutical drugs, two per cent use opium (excluding ‘medical’ use of opium). Hashish is regularly consumed by 15 to 25 per cent of the male adult population,” said the report.

After the completion of the survey, he said treatment centres would be opened inside the camps to treat these people and they would be provided with counselling services.