These are just Numbers "in Egyptian Pound":
- 16 Billion E.P : Is the average sum of money the drug addicts in Egypt spend on drugs annually
- 20,000 : Is the official number of the addicts in Egypt !! "I do not believe this number at all , the addicts in Egypt are more than that "{Update on 13/6/08 please check the comment of Dr.Mohammed El-Hendawi}
- More than 15 Billion E.P : is the average size of the drug trafficking and trade in Egypt
- 25,000 E.P : is the average budget of the Rehab clinics in Egypt
- 16,000 : is the official number of the addicts who go to the Rehab Clinics "if the official number of addicts in Egypt is 20,000 and from them 16,000 go to rehab then , the remain addicts are 4,000 , those 4,000 from 78 million do not form a problem !!"
This is according to the Health Committee in the Egyptian assembly
- 15% of the university students are drug addicts
This is according to the national council for childhood and motherhood
- The drug addicts from the high class are exceeding and they do not use the usual common types of drugs in Egypt , they use Marijuana and stamps
- The starting age of drug addiction in the rich high class decreased to reach to 12 years old for the males and females.
This is according to the national centre for the social and criminal researches
Look the number of drug addicts in Egypt are more then 20,000 for sure , it is enough to know that drugs like Hash and "Bango" are very common among the working low classes in Egypt.
Already the number of 15 Billion E.P means that there are more than 20,000 , we are dealing here with not less half million I think !!
Technorati tags: Egypt, Citizen Journalism, drugs, Economy, Numbers, Society, Social Networking, Egyptian Life, Drug addiction, Middle east, Mideast, Arab world, News, Media, Researches
Something is fishy with those numbers. You mentioned 16 Billion E.P spent annually on drugs in Egypt and the number of addicts as 20,000. This means that on the average a drug addict spends about 800,000 E.P (over 3/4 of a million E.P or about $130,000 (American Dollar)per person) how and where this money come from?. Regardless, I hope countries in the ME has taught in their kids in their history books about the Opium War !!!(check it out).
ReplyDelete@Ohio , the wrong number is the 20,000 ,but the other two numbers the health committee in the assembly mentioned can be true
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the countries in ME did not include the Opium war in their history book but I know what it is but i am sure others do not know
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War
you have to admire the chinese
by the way just like piece of information before 1967 six days , the Egyptian market was dumped by Opium and hash
and no one wants to learn the lesson !!
already from the good things Nasser and his regime did was that the interior ministry and the intelligence watched out the hot zones of drugs mainly in Lebanon , and the reports in order to fight it back
Based on the British colonials, CIA, MI6; Drugs/Narcotics are the easiest weapons you can fight an enemy with by leading him to self destruct. You will notice that an inteligent country like JAPAN doesn't have any measurable drugs usages. I am not sure about China today but I think they are on a good ground. See who hold the most precious seats in universities in the west and you will find the dominance by Chinese and Japanese followed by Indian kids. The picture showing drug usag in Egypt is very very sad and young generation treat it as "cool" until they burn by their self destruct attitude. Sorry, I have no tolerance for this.
ReplyDeleteContmorary conditions in Egypt churn out only one of three:
ReplyDelete1) Cool yankee kids, who are neither western nor Egyptian- they just get the worst from the aforementioned groups.
2) constricted, passive boys and girls who are hoplessly fatalistic, and complaining about the staus quo is what they do best.
3) finally we get self-destructive fantic islamists - and that is not jus about the Jihadists and MBs, but it goes as well for a huge portion of the middle glass who is content with higab and zebiba as they are regarded in society as the token of morality.
It is a pity!
@ embryo I don't know. That seems a little simplistic.
ReplyDeleteOur own Zeinobia seems to be neither a drug addicted yankee, a fatalist or a religious fanatic.
Your analysis seems somewhat limited in my opinion. People use drugs for various reasons. None of which are good. Ohio is right. All of the bright kids in Western universities are Asian (Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and E. Indians--so many E. Indian doctors in the USA). None come from families or backgrounds where drugs are "cool" or "hip".
I kept hearing in Egypt about how the drug use increased after the peace treaty. Is this true?
embryo riddle; you pointed to a very deep subject with #3 on your list(i.e. Self destructive Islamic fanatics..) I hope this doesn't sound as off subject, but I find wide spectrum of population in the ME today taking the easy road to what is defined a good muslim: by "not drinking alcohol, not eating pig-meat, wearing the higab for women and having headfront Zebiba" and that's it using drugs, stealing, corrupt business, killing in the name of jihad, jealousy, ..etc. all those are minor matters. No wonder drugs are cool today among youngs in the ME. The main resposibility here lies with who guides this generation.
ReplyDelete@Ohio , it is not only the cool hip rich kids ,what about the poor and working classes , those classes use drugs more than any class on a daily basis
ReplyDeleteby the way the rich cool kids do not have this religious part in their life at all in the first place to say that they go for the drugs to escape the religious restrictions
@Embryo , again you are too ignoring the poor and working classes , they are rich boys or passive girls or Islamists despite I do not see the current connection between the islamists and addiction
@N.american , about your question , unfortunately it is true :( it is increased after the peace treaty ,new destructive types were introduced to the Egyptian market
I did not get the part about me in your comment
yet I agree that there are several reasons for drug addiction and what is mentioned here are just few of them
@ North American princess, with all due respect to your apparent sophistication and remarakable insights, it is quite obvious that you couldn't capture he undertones of the comment.
ReplyDeleteI just capsuled symptoms of an illness that is widespread throuhout , not only Egyptian society, but all Arab societies as well.
Relating the symptoms to the illness would take too much space and time. So, I suggest that you do more research on the matter.
Anyway, I am sure that at least some got what I wan to say.
Always keep the readers updated with your enlightening comments
Parents, leaders, educators, and religious mentors have the responsibility to properly define their expectations to young generation and work hard on supporting these expectations with proper learning, guidance and care. Failing to do that by ignoring this responsibility (e.g. political leaders are busy piling up wealth, both parents are busy to succeed at work, educators are underpaid and not doing their job and religious leaders are superficially setting what defines a good person) results in all the negatives we see in this generation being rich or poor, Egyptian, and others, Muslims or Christians doesn’t matter. Failing in this mix of responsibilities typically results in vacuum in these kids’ heads that is open for evil to fill with drugs and media tools. I drew the example of Asian kids in the west and you see strong family ties, responsible educators, and high moral expectations set by their spiritual advisors, the outcomes are very visible as N. American princess confirms in reference to these kids performance in the academic and social arenas in the west. We should look at good examples and borrow from them.
ReplyDeleteOhio, I salute you for your articulation, it couldn't actually have been said any better.
ReplyDeleteI just want to tack onto your recipe , the necessity of enforcing Top- down, dedicated, ideologically charged reforms that would tighten the bolts of society and regenerate the decadent morals.
A modified flexible, yet stouch version of Arab nationalism would do the job, since it is secular enough to tolerate religous differences and it is revolutionary iidea by definiton, thus it would would not just encompass cultural change, but call for it by order of necessity.
At a different level it would strike a perfect balance between Egypt's regional role as the capital of Arab culture and its pressing very local problems. Any approach that doesn't take into account Arabic regional extension of Egypt is doomed to failure in the long run; in light of the geoplitical locus of Egypt, and her weight which is not big enough to protect an independent true national renaissance, that is in spite of the fact that it is yet very big when compared to her Arab sisters!
Embryo...I am neither sophisticated in an apparent or a non-apparent way. I don't look for undertones either in written or spoken language as I pretty well just come out and say what I mean. I guess I assume most also do the same. My father used to call it in Arabic "Bidoun lafafan wa dawaran". I just get to the point if I can. So if you had hidden undertones I wouldn't be looking for them. Excuse the crappy Arabic but English is my 1st language. So if you meant in any way to be sarcastic or project some hidden meaning in your explanation, sorry but it was lost on me.
ReplyDeleteI think you make a good point but I don't think that there are only 3 types of people that are churned out of Egyptian society. Re: researching the matter...i'm actually quite lazy when it comes 2 stuff like this...lol...i will leave this 2 more enterprising individuals such as yourself.
My comments aren't enlightening..they are simply my opinions. No more or less valued than anyone else's. But thanks for the lovely compliment. U r very sweet :0)
@ Zeinobia I meant to use you as an example of the point I obviously failed to make which was that you are not necessarily someone who would fit into 1 of the 3 categories that embryo listed.
Ow....no need to snap as I was not being sarcastic. Honestly I dont think there is any reason, somone would feel like making fun of you. I am sure that you took after your father in your unique nature.
ReplyDeleteI understand that English is your 1st language, however allow me to correct a minor slip of yours regarding your understanding of the stray of meanings associated with the word undertone. Undertone doesn't give the sense of a real hidden meaning, rather, a background structure, or the underlying meaning.
Alright don't enlighten us with your comments; let's say pleasure us with your opinions.
@Embryo and Ohio , I do not share with this regional perspective and I do not put the Asian kids in my comparison , here i am talking about problem in Egypt
ReplyDeleteThe rich kids do not take or use drugs in order to be cool or hip like kids abroad because simply their main use for drugs according to the studies and their own confession is the search for more pleasure , for more happiness ,their life is empty got no challenges , they can have anything they want , their parents are busy taking drugs in their case is from the luxury package when you pay 500 E.p per pill then you are definitely rich
this class by the way is faraway from religion and all researches proved that religion in most of the time help the minority of them who go to rehab to quite drugs effectively
here I am talking about the positive side of religion and by the way many shrinks know use it with the drug addicts from the high class and the middle class half of them look to the high class as usual , and the other half is escaping from his problems
let's speak about the poor class the most common and biggest class that use drugs
from age 8 to 88 are using drugs with all its kinds except for the expensive luxury imported good ,on the contrary of the rich kids they got dozens of problems and a terrible life that they want to escape from them in all possible ways ,and the only way they have for most of them is through drugs
Drugs for them is not something bad or shame despite what they hear from the TV and media
there was a study made about the drivers of the micro buses who belong to this class and it was found of them most of them take and use drugs of course in different doses
religion in this class is understood in different way than us , some say it is just cover , not it is a cover but they got different understanding , they do not consider it haram , they pray to God that they won't be caught by police
yes religious parties have important role to enlighten them which may take long time because people do not understand that this class has different perspective ,for example and it is away from drugs but look to Saad El-Sagheer when he built a Mosque and how many people attacked him as they saw it as disrespect for a man like him doing what he does on the stage then built a mosque
Guys we will not solve anything locally if we continue looking abroad and say the kids in Asia and the kids in America , drugs in Egypt have a very long history away from cool and hip ,it was always even before these two words came to existence
@N.American ,I got what you want to say already I do not approve on this classification Embryo , it is too broad and easy
Thanks Zaynobia for caring to reply I actually appreciate your perspective on the issue. And I do agree with many of the points you have laid out.
ReplyDeleteEmbryo...did I snap? God I hope not. It was not my intention at all and I do apologize if you took it that way. That is the problem with the written word. So many ways to read the same thing I suppose.
ReplyDeleteIn any event darling, compliment you with many opinions I will. 1 of these days I'll get back to blogging...just not right now...just 2 lazy...lol...and it's winter and I'm sick with surely what is not H5N1 but sure feels p. nasty and close.
@Embryo riddle , thank you dear
ReplyDelete@N.American , please get to blogging soon and have a speed recovery insh Allah , salamtak Ya Gameel :)
Allahi Salimik...ur such a sweetheart..still coughing and sneezing and stuffed up but ..on the plus side I'm watching the latest Harry Potter movie on dvd and will watch Bourne Supremacy next...:0)
ReplyDeleteHarry Potter and Matt Damon , well I see you are enjoying your time in this flu :)
ReplyDeleteThe topic about The Language of Numbers: Drug addiction and use in Egypt is really amazing. through this article i can understand how to come out drug addiction. it is very useful to drug addicted people.
ReplyDelete------------------
adamgilcrist
Comprehensive resources for those looking for recovery from addiction. http://www.addictionrecovery.net
hello, nice blog and topic, i am a doctor who works in the field of substance abuse and drug addiction treatment, i work for the Heliopolis Psychiatric Hospital AKA airport (El-Matar)hospital, the leading institute of drug addiction medicine in Egypt, and the regional center of Treatnet group, UNODC, i am also the head of the information center of the hospital, anyways, im not making any advertisment for the governmental hospital i work for, we dont need it actually, just mentioned that to ensure the reliability of the information i want to say, the number of 20000 addicts in egypt is rediculous, non-realistic and makes me laugh, as in the year 2007, our hospital alone delivered services for almost 24000 patients in the outpatient clinics! the real number of drug addicts (addicts not users) in Egypt is unknown for sure, but proffissionally it is estimated to be somewhere between 5-6 MILLION addicts, SAD BUT TRUE, these estimations are made by the National Centre for Social and Criminological Research (NCSCR), and the National Council for Fighting and Treating Addiction (NCFTA), both are governmental and specialized facilities.
ReplyDeleteAddiction is a real serious national problem that is going disaterous and huge.
anyways, thanks for the very nice blog, and topic, and for anyone who is interested in details about drug addiction and its treatment in egypt, please feel free to email me at "melhendawi@gmail.com"
@Dr.Mohammed, first of all thank you for taking time to correct this information , already I hinted in my blog that this number "20,000" is unrealistic
ReplyDeletebut I am curious to know the difference between the drug user and the drug addict , the difference is vague here , already the users of drugs can't quit it
Thanks again for time Dr.Mohammed
Dear all,
ReplyDeleteit's great to see this nice blog again, and amazingly i had the same sleepless night that i had almost 2 years ago to post my first comment ..
well ... regarding the hospital i still work for in 2009 it served (17467) cases in the outpatient clinics, considering the recent opening of 17 major centers in allover Egypt compared to only 4 in 2008, this shows that the problem is getting bigger and the numbers are increasing dangerously ..
another serious issue is the change of the nature of the patients we see these days (much more children and adolescent, highly sophisticated persons in high and serious positions, housewives, and even families as a bunch!!) .. I remember seeing a mother and her daughter who is 14 and addicted to heroin and hashish for 3 years!! .. and sure you know where did she got the habit from ..
anyways ...
regarding Zeinobia's question about the difference between the drug user and the drug addict ...
well .. in simple words .. addiction is a brain disease, where changes to the brain and the nervous systems has occurred, addiction is characterized by impairment in behavioral control, and total possession of the substance over the addict .. regardless consequences and circumstances, an addict will abuse the substance, also characterized by the need to increase the dose, or frequency of abuse or even use more than one substance to get the desired effect, and experiencing unpleasant symptoms (withdrawal symptoms) when stopping the substance ...
while users are in a milder form ..
for example ...
if i am a user to coffee ... i will get up in the morning, make myself a coffee, have it, then go to work in time, might have a few coffee drinks in work, during breaks or when its appropriate, when i get my weekly shopping i will remember to buy coffee, and if i got up one day to find that i'm out of coffee, i will still go to work, maybe feeling upset, but life continues ...
but if i am addicted to coffee, first everyone will notice a change in my shape, behavior, and maybe relationships.. i will wake up to have that coffee, and will have all the coffee i have in home, them go to work when i feel like it (if i still have a job), and during all day, i will make excuses, maybe leave work, to get more and more coffee, regardless any risk of losing my job, or even destroying my life ..
when i leave work, i would borrow money, steal money, or spend money that is required for more important and urgent things (my kid school fees for example) to get all the coffee i can get, and drink it all when i get home, if i didn't make some on the way ..
i will go home, pick a fight with my wife, so she leaves, or stop asking me about the money i spent, then i would lie and come with a story about me getting robbed or conned or anything, and ask her for her jewelry to help me cause i am in trouble ...
then maybe i forgive her for whatever i fought with her about!!!
believe me .. i'm not being a comedian .. we see this everyday ..
so a big question is .. am i ok being a user not an addict??
the answer is NOOOOO
both users and addicts need care, maybe different types, but both need care, for the reasons that made the user try and use these substances in the first place .. and second, users are great potentials for near future addicts ...
another big question is .. if i am an addict, can i reduce or get treatment to go back being only a user??
the answer is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and NEVER ..
once an addict, your brain has changed, and your sensitivity and reactions to drugs are changed .. an addict is always an addict with the drugs present ..
sorry if i took so long, but these things are really important, and the ignorance with these slight differences make disasters ...
again thanks for your concern and keep going ..
please feel free to email me about anything :)
Mohamad Elhendawi
melhendawi@gmail.com
For the true numbers of Drug addicts in Egypt, you should check this link:
ReplyDeletehttp://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jzfJENPjPahpCoQhtRUCaK2O2YpQ
Arround 6 Million drud addicts in Egypt !!!