Rehab centre uses music for treatment of Afghan drug addicts

Patients at the Jaghara Treatment Centre in Herat province. Pic/AFP

Hundreds of drug addicts have recovered in the Jaghara Treatment Centre in Afghanistan's Herat province since its establishment eight years ago. In addition to giving medicines to the patients, the treatment centre also plays music and arranges a party twice every day.

"The tune of music and melodies in the treatment centre has inspired me to forget smoking drugs, and after recovery I play music for others in the centre to get cured," Ibrahim Hamraz, a former addict, said. Hamraz, 43, who used to smoke illicit drugs including heroin for 23 years, said he resorted to hashish and then to heroin when he was 20.

The former drug addict said he received medical treatments in several rehabilitation centres over the past decade, but all in vain. But, "it is more than nine months that I have never smoked drugs, neither heroin nor hashish after receiving treatment". Although there are no official statistics on the number of drug addicts in Afghanistan, more than 3 million out of the country's some 32.5 million population have reportedly been addicted.

70k
No. of drug addicts in Herat province, according to Jaghara Treatment Centre

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