Don't look down on drug users!

Sum Thy is appealing to his villagers to stop discriminating against drug users. “I would like to ask people not to look down on drug users otherwise we feel isolated and still use drugs,” he says. “We need consulting and advice to quit. I hope I will be able to stop completely soon.”

With the help of peer educators, Sum Thy is trying to tackle his drug addiction gradually. He has gone from smoking yama and ice several times a day to only once every two or three days.

He and his friends used to have to search for somewhere to smoke where they did not encounter the discrimination of villagers: “No one in the village wanted to talk to me before. They discriminated against me and considered me a gangster. So I felt isolated and without choice. I decided to travel from one village to another with my ten friends from different villages in order to find yama and ice to smoke.”

He admits that after smoking “I felt happier, stronger and braver, and we also felt a much stronger desire to have sex.” He also adds that he and his friends often became violent with other drug users and villagers after smoking.

At the age of 23, Sum Thy has been addicted to yama smoking for six years. But now he believes it is time to change. Since he learned about the risks of drug use, including HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, from local non-governmental organisation Opèration Enfants du Cambodge (OEC), Sum Thy has been aiming to quit.

“I now understand about the risk of yama and other drug smoking and the HIV epidemic. I got the information from one of my friends who completely stopped smoking. Because of the information, I know that drugs really harm my health and my future. Drugs can disgrace me in society, especially in my village.”

Since OEC was set up in 2006 with the support of Alliance linking organisation Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance (KHANA), the organisation has targeted 200 drug users and 100 non-drug users in the 24 villages of Banan district, Battambang province. In April OEC increased its reach to a further 11 villages in a different district.

Hak Sam Phon, co-ordinator of OEC’s HIV and drugs programme, thinks there must be at least ten drug users in every village. Now the organisation’s ten peer educators – five former drug users and five non-drug users – are helping to raise awareness of the risks of drug use among young people and villagers. Along with the local authorities and police, OEC is strongly urging the villagers not to discriminate against drug users and allow them to become isolated.