MADINAH: There is no limit to the level a drug addict may stoop, said Col. Turki Al-Zahrani, director of the Drug Combating Administration in the Madinah province. He was speaking at an anti-narcotics seminar, entitled “Together to Clean Madinah of Narcotics,” recently.
“Drugs destroy a man’s sense of honor. An addict has no remorse in trading his own wife for a few puffs,” he said.
He further mentioned the story of a man who recently kicked the habit. The man wasted all his wealth on drugs, and did not have any money left. “In his good days, his friends had offered him narcotics free, but when all his money was gone the friends also disappeared,” Al-Zahrani said.
When his need for drugs became intolerable, an old friend sent him to some drug peddlers who said they would provide him with drugs if he allowed them to sleep with his wife. The man was so desperate that he agreed.
On receiving the drugs, the man left his wife alone with the drug pushers in his house. “The woman left her husband and eventually won a divorce. Shocked by how low he had stooped, the man finally admitted himself into a drug rehabilitation center and now leads a normal life,” Al-Watan daily quoted Al-Zahrani as saying at the seminar.
Lt. Col. Sultan Al-Nazawi, another speaker at the campaign, provided feedback on the heart-rending scenes he had seen when arresting addicts.
“A weeping boy tried to lift the chains on his father’s feet to help him walk comfortably. The father was being taken to a rehabilitation center. The child asked, ‘Why did they put chains on your legs?’ Even the onlookers were wiping their tears at this sight,” Al-Nazawi said.
Lt. Col. Munawir Al-Harbi, director of the anti-narcotics wing in Madinah city, said that some people tell lies to their children when police arrest them on drug charges. “They tell their children that we are their enemies when in fact it is we who strive to save them and their families,” Al-Harbi said.
He added that once he was put in an extremely embarrassing situation while visiting a private hospital. A boy of five or six years started throwing things at him shouting, “You thug, why did you take my papa away,” the officer said.
Sheikh Suleiman Al-Jubailan, a prominent religious preacher, delivered a series of lectures on the harmful effects of liquor and drugs as part of the campaign.
