Oman Drug Addiction

Oman is part of a region described as the Near and Mid-East. As part of this designation, Oman contributes a rather small share of the estimated 8 to 11 million cannabis users in the region and the estimated 2 to 4 million opiate users. Historically, Oman has been a fairly small consumer market for drugs being trafficked internationally.

Sitting on the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman, not far from the world’s largest heroin trafficking channels, Oman has been largely exempt from the problems seen in Europe and the Americas. In 1994, they reported 200 people addicted to sedatives, 150 people addicted to hashish and 60 people addicted to heroin. Methadone was brought into the country in the early 1990s, as a treatment program for opiate addiction, but it was later discontinued.

Oman’s Drug Abuse and Addiction Figures Start to Rise

By 2008, Oman was seeing a large increase in the quantity of cannabis resin (hashish) seizures and in the quantity of Captagon seized. Captagon used to be the name of a prescription medication, but when that medication went off the market, it became the street name for a formulation that usually contains between one percent and seven percent amphetamine. The trafficking of Captagon is common throughout the Gulf and Mid-East countries.

Increases in seizures generally mean there have been increases in supply followed by increases in numbers of those addicted to the drugs being trafficked. And sure enough, these increases were accompanied by a rise in the demand for drug rehab for amphetamine addiction.

The largest increases in drug addiction are currently seen in school and college girls. In 2008, 1,826 people were officially registered with the government as drug addicts. In 2009, 19 people died due to drug abuse and the number of crimes related to drug use were climbing, increasing in a few years from 78 to 688. About this time, the government of Oman acknowledged that it had a drug problem among its young people. They recently built a new psychiatric hospital capable of treating 50 addicts at a time.

Women Have a Harder Time Finding Drug Addiction Treatment Than Men

Many girls or women become addicted after the man they have a relationship with gets addicted. They may start with a prescription drug, or simply smoking cigarettes, followed by using hashish and alcohol then pills, morphine, and heroin.

But treating addicted women in this country carries much more stigma than treating addicted men. The addiction of their women is not something that is acceptable to discuss.

Narconon Provides Drug Addiction Treatment to Men and Women, Young and Old

In some forty Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers around the world, all kinds of people get the help they need. It takes longer than a few weeks or a month to rebuild a life that has been destroyed by drugs, and that is what the drug-free Narconon program offers. People from every walk of life, old and young, come to Narconon and leave with the ability to live fully drug-free. People who were previously addicted learn how to create a sober life again.

With the help of Narconon drug treatment centers, countries can help themselves to a future in which their citizens have learned how to live drug-free.

The closest Narconon drug treatment center to Oman is located in Egypt.