Heroin addiction among young people: a new development in Sri Lanka

Heroin addiction is a recent phenomenon in Sri Lanka. The records of the University Psychiatry Unit of the General Hospital at Colombo show that in 1982 the first two Sri Lankans were hospitalized in the Unit for heroin addiction; the number increased to 92 in 1983. This article summarizes the results of a study of 100 heroin addicts who were treated in the Psychiatry Unit from January 1983 to March 1984. Most addicts inhaled heroin, and the average amount consumed was 340 mg per day. The majority of them had used heroin for a period of less than one year, while 9 per cent had used it for more than two years. All the addicts in the study were males. Only 6 per cent were older than 34 years; 5 per cent were unemployed at the time they started using heroin; 67 per cent were single; and 93 per cent had left school before the tenth grade. Two ethnic groups--Moors and Burghers--were relatively over-represented compared with the proportion of these groups in the national population. The majority of the employed addicts (70 per cent) reported that heroin addiction had interfered with their ability to work.