Lives after Drugs

By staff reporter LIU DONGPING

Police and addicts in a drug rehabilitation center.

THE famous Kunming Drug Rehabilitation Center, founded in 1989, is located in the suburbs of Kunming City, Yunnan Province. It is the first drug rehabilitation center in China and the biggest in Asia. Covering 200 hectares, the center is divided into four therapy areas: detoxification; recovery; female drug rehabilitation; and voluntary rehabilitation and recovery. It is also China's sole detoxification pharmacy research and production center. During the past 10 years, the center has treated 47,000 drug addicts from China's mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. At present, 3,600 addicts are receiving treatment at the center.

The Kunming Rehabilitation Mode

The Kunming Rehabilitation Center has developed an effective package of rehabilitation therapies since its founding 10 years ago, labeled "the Kunming mode" by the UNIDCP. Compared to substitute therapy in America and Europe whereby drugs are replaced by less harmful patent drugs, the Kunming mode pays more attention to the holistic process of physical detoxification, psychological treatment and a consolidated period of recovery through work and labor. In the early 1990s, the center developed the "6·26" herbal medicine capsule, which could rid a person of physical addiction with 100 percent effectiveness. It is safe, quick and convenient, causes no pain or side effects, and is not addictive. Physical detoxification is further assisted by psychological treatment, recovery through labor therapy, and community intervention and supervision after patients go back home.

"The capsule is effective without side effects," said a young Taiwanese patient. "I tried to get off drugs in Taiwan, but failed. I ‘m getting better all the time here. My family is delighted with my state of health. I am recovering fast and often take physical exercise."

This youngster got addicted at 17 because of depression. He spent 10 million Taiwan dollars in three years. "I came here late last year, and it cost RMB 3,000 every 40 days. Now I no longer want drugs. I can't even remember what heroin tastes like." He was very confident that he could quit and decided to become a volunteer and help others to quit drugs.

According to experts, it is not too difficult to eliminate a physical addiction to drugs; a 10-day period of isolation from drugs is normally sufficient. The difficulty lies in psychological rehabilitation. At present, the average drug reabuse rate is high, because the problem of psychological addiction is hard to crack.

The Kunming mode adopts a holistic treatment combining physical, psychological and social factors. After the three phrase treatment of detoxification, recovery and follow-up care, most patients can thoroughly rid themselves of drugs. The Kunming mode's success has won high praise internationally. More than 7,000 government officials, journalists and experts from 130 countries have visited the center.

Patients often do manual labor, such as picking kidney beans, or exercise in the center's playground. Labor is not only a healing therapy but also a good way for patients to supplement their treatment costs. In recent years, the rehabilitation center has set up a recovery farm with government support. The farm has planted 15,000 fruit trees and raised chickens, cows and sheep. It serves as a place where patients can consolidate their recovery through farmwork, and facts prove that these patients have a lower likelihood of reabuse than those who are sent back home directly after rehabilitation.

The Kunming center has also developed a drug control mechanism that combines rehabilitation, recovery and community protection. It provides consultation services on drug control and AIDS prevention, and operates a network of compulsory and voluntary rehabilitation, community supervised recovery and drug prevention education. This network has helped reduce the reabuse rate and the number of new addicts, and prevent the spread of AIDS.

Humanized Management

The drug police of Huitong County, Henan Province destroyed a hideout , arresting four.

There are no frosted iron windows, electric nets and high walls at the rehabilitation center. The garden environment is tidy, neat and well facilitated.

Zhang Yuzu, former director of the rehabilitation center, says a humanized environment is necessary for human management. Twenty million yuan has been invested in improving     facilities so that patients can receive better treatment in an isolated, drug-free and congenial environment.

The humanized and scientific management here enables many patients take on a new lease of life. Xinli (all patient names have been changed) is from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. She used to be a respectable primary school teacher, and later a wealthy jeweler. But everything felt to ruins after she became a slave to drugs. During her seven years of addiction, she tried to quit many times, but failed.

In 2002 Xinli was sent to the rehabilitation center. The center staff supported her and taught her about drugs and related laws. Xinli loves painting, so they asked her to take charge of the blackboard bulletin. They also got in touch with her parents and persuaded them not to give up on their daughter. With their support, Xinli was encouraged, and gradually found a new life.

Xinli left the center a year later, but kept in touch with the center staff. She went back to school and became employed at an insurance company. She will never forget that it was the center staff who helped her to begin a new life.

Humanized management offers care and education to the patients. The center has family and psychological hotlines and a family reception hall. The staff holds birthday parties, provides clinic services and a nutritious diet, All this helps drug addicts to regain their self respect.

Juvenile Addicts

Congcong, a 12-year-old boy, is the youngest patient at the center. He comes from a small village in Guizhou Province. His father died when he was still very young, leaving his grandmother and stepmother to look after him. They had no money to send him to school. A drug smuggler coaxed him into stealing 500 yuan from his grandmother to escape to Kunming. It was the first time Congcong touched her. As soon as he got addicted to the drug, the drug smuggler forced him to pay. He soon spent all his grandmother's money and became a street waif. Policemen found him and sent him to the rehabilitation center. "I want to go home," he says, "I want to go to school. I will never have anything to do with those bad guys anymore."

Ma Yan was born in a poor village in Luxi County, Yunnan Province. She became an orphan at the age of two. She once became sick with a stomachache and tried to find some medicine at her adopt parents' home. What she took as medicine was actually a narcotic, and she became addicted. Ma has suffered a lot in order to survive and maintain a personal supply of the drugs she needed. She has been to the center four times. She is eager to cooperate with the staff and works very hard, but is still worried about her future: "I've got no home outside," she says. "Where shall I go?"

The Kunming Drug Rehabilitation Center is making every effort to save these young patients. Only through the concerned efforts of all can a drug-free, healthy and civilized society be established.