300000 Drug Addicts In Algeria, Survey

Algeria counts 302 thousand drug addicts aging between 20 and 30 years old, general director of the National Office for Fighting Drug and Addiction (ONLDT), Abdelmalek Sayeh said on Sunday.

Mr Sayeh told a press conference held in Algiers, on the occasion of the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking that a survey on a sample of 48 thousand addicts aged between 12 and 40 years old, conducted by ONLDT concluded that 1.15 percent of the population consume drugs, of which 1.96 percent are men and 0.67 are women.

Mr Besayeh added that 42 thousands addicts have been cleaned after enduring detox-treatments, pointing out that 20 detoxification centers will be opened sooner.

He specified that the drug addiction is increasingly widening, given that the existing drug detoxification centers used to receive between 4000 and 7000 addicts per year, but nowadays they receive between 11 thousand and 12 thousand addicts.

However, the survey of ONLDT shows that the majority of drug addicts in Algeria live in the southern regions of the country, followed by those living in the western part, then those of the eastern part, and finally those living in the centre regions.