Ozone Centre to fight heroin abuses and HIV infection from needle sharing
Heroin may not be a popular illicit drug among drug abusers in the three southernmost provinces. But an increasing number of people are addicted to it cases of police arrests are picking up.
Unlike other narcotic drugs, one major concern of heroin abuses in the Deep South is the increasing incidence of HIV infection due to the sharing of needles. And that is the reason why the Ozone Centre was set up to give counseling to heroin addicts and to launch publicity campaign against heroin abuses among youths in the restive region. At present there are two Ozone Centre offices in Narathiwat province – one in Su-ngai Kolok district and the other in Waeng district.
The reason that the two districts were chosen as the locations for the centre is that heroin is easily available here and the price is cheap.
Believe it or not, anyone who wants to have a shot of heroin simply wades across the shallow Kolok river to the other side of the border. There, several make-shift tents were erected openly where the drug peddlers are waiting for their customers. Just pay the cash and get a small amount of heroin and then get a shot behind one of the bushes there. Then the abusers go back to the tents for a rest and leave whenever they want.
Each shot is 100 baht. Many drug users who are regular customers brought with them shorts which they wear when they wade through the river.
One 22-year old heroin user, Abdulloh Kiji, said he earns 200 baht a day working as a rubber tapper and will spend them all each day to satisfy his drug habit. He said he has never earned enough and, therefore, decided to get help from Ozone Centre.
Ms Nadda Neengoh, a coordinator at the centre in Su-ngai Kolok said the centre would provide methadone to the heroin addicts so that they would gradually abandon heroin. They were also advised to stop sharing needles if they could not kick the habit.
The centre, she added, emphasizes on encouraging the addicts to kick the drug habit and when they can stop using heroin they would be told to spread the message among other heroin users to join the rehabilitation programme at the centre.
Set up since2011, the centre at Su-ngai Kolok has 494 members, including three women.
Many of them have been campaigning their peers to stop using heroin and turn to the Ozone Centre for help. Anyone who is not ready yet to kick the habit will be distributed with syringes so that they will not share needles with the other addicts to reduce the risk of getting infected with HIV.
