The Al-Amal Hospital for Mental Health in Dammam conducted the study after surveying 411 rehabilitated people recently.
While 28 percent of the young men and women participated in the poll said they were willing to marry former addicts conditionally, 21 percent said they did not mind whether their partners were addicts in the past or not, the study said.
A source at the Al-Amal Hospital said only 18 addicts sought the help of its out-patient department. The National Committee to Combat Drugs (NCCD) said recently that it treated 3,221 women drug abusers in 2010.
According to a report of the NCCD, 140,000 addicts in the Kingdom consume 700,000 Captagon capsules (the brand name of the banned fenethylline stimulant) daily at an annual cost of SR9 billion.
The report added that between 30,000 and 37,000 addicts are arrested annually.
The total number of drug addicts in Arab countries is estimated at 10 million while the total number of addicts in the world is put at 255 million, according to United Nations’ studies.
A report by customs officials said it confiscated 17 million Captagon tablets, 687 kg of hashish, nine kg of heroin and 5 kg of cocaine in the first half of 2010.
The Amal study also says that the number of addiction among Saudi students has been rising annually.
The study pointed out that the middle class youths were less prone to addiction than the poor and the rich in society.
Drug rehabilitation clinics in Jeddah and Riyadh reportedly receive large numbers of e-mail requests from relatives, mostly wives or parents of addicts, saying that their husbands or children are addicts and that they refuse to seek help.
