Although many Sri Lankans are alive to the proliferation of the drug habit, particularly the addiction to heroin of young persons in the cities and even in rural areas of the island,there is however,a sad lack of awareness of drug abuse in the workplace.

It is indeed depressing to realise the distance we have to cover in taking cognisance of the problem,let alone drawing strategies to combat it,when compared to the advances made in other Asian countries in this regard.The above impression is conveyed strongly, when one learns of the comprehensive strategies adopted and the attention devoted to the problem in some Asian countries.

When big time drug dealers and small time purveyors of drugs are being nabbed by the law enforcement authorities with alarming frequency, it is indeed baffling that insufficient attention is being directed towards the menace insidiously spreading to the workplace. It is all the more inexplicable when one sees the remand prisons in the island overflowing mostly with youth in the vulnerable age group of 18 –30 years taken in for drug related offences.What is intriguing is that with drug abuse assuming disturbing proportions in the larger society there is an almost complete neglect of the problem by employers in their immediate work environment. There are reportedly some multi-nationals and a few firms in the Free trade Zone that have counseling services for their employees, but these are few and far between. Even the few existing counseling services, suffer from a lack of focus on core problems affecting individual employees and the absence of any sustained and effective follow up stemming from a lack of resources dedicated to this crucial area and even more importantly due to the lack of interest on the part of the counselors and the organisations themselves!

It is indeed time for the government and the private sector employers to sit up and take serious notice of the problem without shutting their eyes to it. The easy, convenient and typically escapist attitude is to convince oneself that the problem does not exist! If one finds the problem a trifle worrisome for one’s comfort, a whole host of reasons will be trotted out on the dangers of highlighting a sensitive problem of this nature and bringing it out into the open thereby raising,what they fear, would be a hornets’ nest in the workplace.This habit of turning away from problems by wishing them away, is almost an ingrained national weakness among Sri Lankans. The tendency is to delude oneself into believing that the problem is unlikely to exist in a disciplined and organised work environment like one’s workplace and that even if it does, it would be miniscule and undeserving of any public fuss making an exercise like building public awareness of the grave risks associated with it, even counter productive.

I well remember how concerned the late Professor Nandadasa Kodagoda was with the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse particularly among the younger generation, the time he functioned as the Chairman of the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB), when I was myself a Council member of the Board. He was of the view that alcohol and cigarettes were "gateway drugs" which paved the way particularly for school children and young adults to resort to hard drugs like heroin.

Being a communicator par excellence, Prof.Kodagoda was able to get the message across most effectively,when he addressed school children and employees of public and private sector organisations alike,on the dangers of alcohol and substance abuse. His was an unremitting campaign carried on island- wide with selfless dedication. I still recall how enthralled the audiences of varying age groups were, listening to his discourses with rapt attention.

Clearly, there are practical problems in assessing the size of the problem with any degree of accuracy.This is due to the sensitivity and the clandestine nature of the problem which would not readily lend itself to any objective verification of it’s magnitude.This is to be expected and should certainly not be an excuse for pushing it under the rug. Even when it comes to estimating the total number of persons addicted to hard drugs,researchers are wont to depend on deductions worked out on the available statistics of those convicted for drug offences and on the large numbers consigned to remand prison. Conducting field surveys and using questionnaires would not be of much use in trying to elicit the required information, as identifying the addicts would be the most difficult hurdle and obtaining information from them with any degree of accuracy would again pose an even greater difficulty.The few studies attempted through questionnaires etc. have produced only inconclusive results. Yet one does not have to be a statistical wizard to make reasonable deductions from whatever empirical data available.Going on the numbers and percentages of persons in remand prison for drug related offences,the NDDCB deduced the number of heroin addicts as being in the region of 100,000.This estimate was arrived at about four years ago.Hence, one could reasonably surmise that the number is ,if anything, something more than what was estimated at that time. Such a presumption is justified when one goes by the frequent reports appearing in the daily newspapers of the arrests of drug dealers by the law enforcement authorities. All this would validate the assumption that the workplace being an integral part of larger society would be equally vulnerable to the insidious incursion of drug pedlars and their organised networks.

It is indeed a common sight to see young executives both male and female, frequenting fashionable night clubs where the hard drug ecstasy circulates amongst a ‘privileged’ and exclusive clientele. It has also been reported by investigative journalists how school boys of leading schools in Colombo and the outstations have been inveigled into the drug habit and have been forced to form a part of the dealer network to feed the habit. It is a known fact that heroin dealers have penetrated the remotest areas of the country catching unemployed youth and even school children to get into the drug habit and in turn become a part of the distribution network.

President Kumaratunge was determined to combat the drug menace with all the resources at the command of the State as much as the present incumbent President Rajapaksa is.Although these organised and sustained efforts have certainly had an impact,the problem still remains grave with dire prospects of it spreading and becoming a veritable scourge sapping away the vital energies of the youth of this country.