Rehabilitation Center: Plans Are Underway For Treatment To Drug Addicts

Community base drug addict treatment center will be open in East Dagon Township. 

The objective of the center is to provide treatment and rehabilitation tasks to the patients who want to stop using drugs. 

Yangon Region Committee for Drug Abuse Control will operate the center in cooperation with Social Welfare Department and Health Department. 

The Center will provide treatment and rehabilitation process to the drug users through counseling programs with the experts. .

Officer-in-charge (Criminal Case), Yangon Region Police Force, Police Major Hla Wai: We chose one township-East Dagon where is the best place to go easy not only for the patients who want to cut using drugs but also for the doctors. Then, if we know the drug users, we won’t take action and we’ll help them to get the right track in their life.  

Since this is the pilot program and officials called for participation of the public. 

Technical Advisor, National Drug Abuse Control Programme, Dr. Hla Htay: As this the community base pilot project, public participation is very important and we also need to implement in line with the international standard. Firstly, we need to promote the awareness on danger of using drugs and find the new patients by doing early identification. Then, we have to do the counseling and if they need treatment, we need to send the treatment center and rehabilitation center.  

Currently no official data are available on the number of drug users. According to UNODC’s report, it is estimated that about 83,000 males used injected drugs. The statistics of Mental Health Hospital shows that women drug addicts increase to 11 % from 2 % in late 2015.  

UNODC and Myanmar Police Force have met in Nay Pyi Taw in last February to conduct first ever nationwide survey on drug users in Myanmar.