“The addicts, aged 18-43 years, included four women each from Egypt, Eritrea and Yemen in addition to two from the United Arab Emirates and one each from Turkey, Pakistan and Palestine,” the hospital said.
Reports from the Society to Combat Smoking in Makkah claim that more and more women were smoking cigarettes and taking drugs, but the percentage of addicts to the general population is still not very high. The society expected the number of women addicts willing to receive treatment at the center to increase with the programs being aired by satellite television.
According to a study conducted by women researchers at the Department of Girls' Education in Jeddah, about 20 percent of student female smokers and drug addicts are secondary school students.
The director general of anti-drug enforcement, Maj.Gen. Osman bin Nasser Al-Moharrij, said the department has an integrated division solely manned by women.
“We also have consultants, inspectors and specialists,” he told a workshop in Makkah.
The workshop, which concluded Wednesday, was held for directors of awareness and preventive divisions in the department. It was held under the sponsorship of Prince Muhammad bin Naif, assistant minister of interior for security affairs.
Al-Moharrij quoted official statistics from his department saying that the most commonly used drugs were the fenethylline tablets (black-market stimulant pills sold under the defunct brand name Captagon) followed by hashish. He said there were awareness programs to enlighten school students about the hazards of drugs.
“The programs are targeting about 5 million male and female students in the Kingdom and the efforts are being made with the Ministry of Education to make awareness against drugs part of educational curricula,” he said.
Head of the division of preventive awareness at the department Fareed Miman said this was the third workshop of its kind and said representatives of Umm Al-Qura and King Abdulaziz universities attended in addition to the directors of the Al-Amal hospitals. He said the workshop embodied an exhibition showing the Kingdom's efforts in combating drugs.
The women's division at the anti-drugs department completed a training program about two weeks ago for women working in the division who make continuous inspection tours of female facilities.
In addition to the Al-Amal Hospital, there are other bodies in the Kingdom concerned with combating drugs, including the consultant center at the National Committee to Combat Drugs that recently announced it treated 3,221 women drug abusers in 2010.
The Saudi Customs Department said during the first half of 2010, authorities confiscated 17 million Captagon tablets, 687 kilograms of hashish, nine kilograms of heroin, five kilograms of cocaine and 44,000 bottles of alcohol.
