Curious cases flood rehab centre

kolkata: an excise officer went to a raid and checked a pure sample of brown sugar with his tongue and got hooked. the curious wife of a police officer sampled her husband's haul of brown sugar and had to be de-addicted. a highly-placed executive betting with his friends tasted heroin and fell prey to 'the high'. such peculiar cases are everyday matter in the only drug de-addiction and rehabilitation centre in rajarhat which is flooded with patients.the centre, named uttaran (ascent), is sponsored by the state ministry of social justice and empowerment and has in its list of cures cases that may sound like fiction. according to dr dulal chandra das, chief doctor of the centre, uttaran provides a complete cure for nearly all type of addiction cases. the list of addiction ranges from brown sugar, heroin, marijuana, smack to something as common as alcoholism, he says. but the greater number of patients coming here are addicted to brown sugar and ganja. in an intense 15-day course, the centre's health officers can cure nearly all sorts of addicts, except the very deep-rooted ones. while allopathic medicines are used most often during therapy, sometimes doctors prescribe homoeopathic and ayurvedic medicines as well. all the medication is provided free to the addict boarders who are allowed to stay here only for a fortnight. the centre has 15 beds, managed by a staff of 19. but the demand for more beds is rising as more and more addicts turn up to be rehabilitated. because of this limitation, we are forced to refuse patients who need our help badly. we can only accommodate 30 patients a month. if the number of beds is doubled we can cope with the growing number of addicts, says gandhi pal, centre in-charge. officials dealing with drug addicts have a lot of practical suggestions, but the government does not appear to be listening. nobody is ready to hear us, said an aggrieved official. he alleged that the government was not serious about the narcotics menace. as a result of this apathy, sale of drugs and, consequently, the number of addicts was on the rise, he added. another official warned that recently the centre came across addicts who might soon contract aids as they were sharing needles to inject drugs.