Addicts dance at Jaghara Treatment Center in Injil district of Herat province, western Afghanistan, April 15, 2021. (Photo by Arif Karimi/Xinhua)
HERAT, Afghanistan, April 13 (Xinhua) -- "The tune of music and melodies in the treatment center has inspired me to forget smoking drugs, and after recovery I p
lay music for others in the center to get cured," Ibrahim Hamraz whispered joyfully.
Hamraz, 43, who used to smoke illicit drugs including heroin for 23 years and was almost dead, told Xinhua recently that he resorted to hashish and then to heroin when he was 20.
The former drug addict said he received medical treatments in several rehabilitation centers over the past decade but all in vain.
"I have received medical treatments several times over the past decade and had given up smoking for 15 times but resumed drug smoking after a few weeks or a few months," Hamraz muttered.
However, he said, "It is more than nine months that I have never smoked drugs, neither heroin nor hashish after receiving treatment via playing music in Jaghara Treatment Center in Injil district, Herat province."
The western Herat province with about 70,000 drug addicts, according to Abdul Zahir Atae, head of the Jaghara Treatment Center, would further suffer due to the increase in drug trafficking and its easy availability.
"The price of some 1 g drugs mostly heroin in the past years was 350 afghani (1 U.S. dollar equals 77.30 afghanis) but nowadays it sold on streets at a price of 10-20 afghani," Atae said, adding the low price and its availability in bulk have resulted in the growing number of drug addicts in the relatively peaceful province.
Atae, who used to smoke drugs for 32 years and recovered eight years ago, told Xinhua that in addition to giving medicines to the patients, the treatment center also plays music and arrange music party by the staff twice every day.
"Usually, the music staff of the Jaghara Treatment Center performs music for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon whenever the addicts feel thirst for heroin, and after listening to music, they feel quenched," Atae muttered with pride.
Hundreds of drug addicts have recovered in the Jaghara Treatment Center since its establishment eight years ago via a new method of playing music and melodies, he assumed.
Although there is no official statistics on the number of drug addicts in the conflict-battered Afghanistan, more than 3 million out of the country's some 32.5 million population have reportedly been addicted, including many in the capital of Kabul.
"I used to smoke drugs for eight years. My family had taken me to several hospitals to eliminate the menace but no positive outcome," a former drug addict Timor Shah Sarwari, 25, spoke softly.
"Thank God that I recovered in Jaghara Treatment Center through using the new method, the method of listening to music during which I forget the drug and have not smoked since my discharging from the center three months ago." Enditem
