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ISLAMABAD: Drug dependent women become mentally and emotionally unstable and half of the users surveyed confirmed that its use led to family violence while one female addict was responsible for destroying her entire family.
The most common drugs used by respondents are charas, heroin and alcohol while use of hasheesh with charas and other drugs is a new emerging trend.
The stunning statements were revealed in a report presented at a workshop organised by Ministry of Narcotics Control here on Friday.
Parliamentary Secretary for Narcotics Control Syed Inayat Ali Shah, Director-General Planning and Monitoring Unit (PMU) Ministry of Narcotics Control Mohammad Shahid, Dr Nadeem Rehman United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Head Institute of Psychiatry Fareed Minhas and others attended the workshop.
The DG PMU informed the participants about findings of research conducted under the project titled ‘Gender Justice and Protection Project’.
He said that the study was based on a survey conducted in five cities — Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore, Karachi and Quetta.
He added that use of sheesha was being taken as status symbol and young girls and boys, unaware of its harms, smoke it as recreational activity.
Fareed Minhas said that hookah or sheesha smoking had become a very popular trend in the country, adding that using a sheesha to smoke tobacco posed a serious health hazard to smokers and others exposed to the smoke.
He said that typical one-hour long water pipe smoking session involved inhaling of 100-200 times the volume of smoke inhaled with a single cigarette.
“Even after it has passed through water, the smoke produced by a water pipe contains high levels of toxic compounds – heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals,” he said.
Farid Minhas added that sharing a mouthpiece posed a serious risk of transmission of communicable diseases, including Tuberculosis (TB) and Hepatitis.
