Gazans turn to drugs in despair

Traumatised by violence, with widespread unemployment, the Gaza Strip is an eager market for the millions of pills smuggled in every month.

Police burn illegal drugs, alcohol and banned goods in the Gaza Strip this month.

RAFAH // Abu Mohammed, 40, sits in the mobile phone and internet shop in Rafah that he manages with his brother and explains how he became addicted to a powerful painkiller.

"Before the war there was some drug use in Gaza but nothing too big," he said, referring to the period between the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007 and the Israeli military operation in 2008-2009 that left about 1,400 Palestinians dead. "Some people would smoke some hashish; others might get some Valium or Xanax through the tunnels or from a pharmacist, but it was only a small number of people and even they thought they were treating depression more than taking them to feel good."

He described his own drug use at that point as nothing more than the occasional glass of whiskey smuggled past Hamas customs agents and a few hashish cigarettes on a trip to Egypt. But even as Gaza and its people attempted to recover from the considerable trauma of the war, it seemed that every new development - the Israeli refusal to allow rebuilding materials into Gaza, a punishing ban on exports that swelled Gaza's already formidable unemployment rolls and a near-complete lockdown on travel out of the tiny Gaza Strip - has in many ways crushed the spirits of what had been for years some of the most resilient and resourceful people in the Middle East.

"We can report that unemployment is at about 45 per cent in Gaza, but that doesn't account for tens of thousands of Fatah government employees paid by Ramallah to not work," according to Adnan Abu Hasna, an official with the United Nations in Gaza City. "So there's a few Hamas employees, these Fatah employees, no job creation and a massive economic collapse. Eighty per cent of the Gaza Strip is dependent on food aid. The increased drug use we're seeing is a psychological consequence of begging from the UN, NGOs, the Israelis, and the Egyptians just to survive."

Mr Abu Hasna described a situation in which many family dynamics have completely collapsed behind that sense of humiliation and the widespread belief that nothing will change in the foreseeable future. "Drugs? Not the only social problem we're seeing," he said. "Divorce rates are very high, domestic abuse and intra-family violence appears to be widespread; even children have become violent towards each other as their own families have become violent towards them.

"Simply put: there's no tomorrow in Gaza. I can't promise a single person in Gaza that their life will ever get better. Sometimes you need to lie to people to keep their spirits up, but since the war, there's no point to lying." Abu Mohammed agreed with that assessment, pointing out that the smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza were doing booming business before the war, but it was only after the fighting stopped and people started looking for relief from the trauma that they became filled with what many experts describe as millions of tablets, named Tramal and cheaply made in Egyptian factories, that are carried into the strip each month.

"Every Tramal tablet in Egypt comes to Gaza now," Abu Mohammed said as six or seven of his middle-class friends sat in the store and laughed among themselves. "It started when people first heard that it was good for sex. But if you start taking them, it also makes you feel good and forget you're here. But then one tablet doesn't work anymore, and you need more, that's why I control it by stopping every two or three weeks for a week, so I don't lose that feeling."

At about US$1 per dose, the drug also remains affordable, even amid the poverty of Gaza, and Abu Mohammed proved its availability by returning to his shop not more than five minutes later with a 10-dose strip of the tablets for just over $10. Hamas officials recently began a crackdown on the drug and in the course of claiming to have seized two million doses of the drug in July alone, one top official admitted to The National that he doubts the police intercepted more than 10 per cent of the influx of pills from Egypt.

"At least 20 million pills a month, every month, for a population of 1.5 million people?" said the police official, who refused to be named. "How can that not be an epidemic of addiction?" Several tunnel operators asked about the extent of the smuggling described his estimate as reasonable. Hasan Zeyada, a psychologist and manager of the Gaza Community Centre, which treats drug addicts, said the problems began appearing widespread after the war, starting with what he described as "psychosomatic pain".

"The high stress levels from the ongoing blockade, multiple invasions, internal divisions and fighting and finally the massacre of January 2009 have consequences," Mr Zeyada said. "People at first started talking about pain - in their backs, in their heads. And they would seek to medicate these pains, even though they were psychological in nature. "Then people started suggesting it to each other," he continued. "'Try this tablet, it makes your mood better,' people would tell each other. What started as a benign misdiagnosis of common stress ailments has now turned into an addiction driven by psychological pain."

Back in Rafah, a group of young men entered the shop, joking and laughing as they escaped the searing heat. "Look at my cousin Ahmed," Abu Mohammed said, pointing at a normal-looking college student of about 18. Laughing and drinking coffee with his friends, only the glassy look in his eyes betrayed his addiction. "For months after the war, I didn't see Ahmed smile one time," Abu Mohammed said. "But once he started taking Tramal every day, you see he's relaxed, he jokes, he smiles. He can forget he lives in Gaza and has no future, even if it's only for a few hours."

When asked about it, Ahmed did not hesitate to admit to the drug use. "Everyone I know takes Tramal," he laughed. "What else can we do?" @Email:[e-mail]