DR. MUHAMMAD MANZAR EHSAN, DR. IRSHAD UL HASSAN IBRAR, ABDUL WAKEEL, MUHAMMAD IDREES, HAFIZ TALHA, HAFIZ JAMIL KHALIL, DR. HAFIZ MUHAMMAD AFZAL
DOI: https://doi.org/Drug addiction is one of the most persistent and under-resourced public health crises in Pakistan. There are an estimated 6.7 million users across the country, with an estimated 1.2 to 2 million people classified as dependent addicts in need of urgent clinical intervention. Sustainable recovery outcomes are disappointingly low despite a formal legal architecture (notably the Control of Narcotic Substances Act 1997) and operational mandate of the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF)). The study examines the comparative and complementary roles of institutions in the rehabilitation of drug affected in Pakistan with special reference to the city of Lahore. The research pursues four objectives: to map the institutional landscape of addiction treatment and recovery; to evaluate the effectiveness and limitations of state, medical, educational, and civil-society interventions; to examine the largely under-studied contribution of religious and Sufi institutions-mosques, madrassas, and khanqahs-to psychosocial recovery; and to propose an integrated, culturally responsive model of rehabilitation. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative, document-based interpretive design that integrates a doctrinal and thematic analysis of a primary Urdu-language research corpus with secondary academic, governmental and international literature.. The findings point toward a fragmented rehabilitation scenario in Pakistan: law-enforcement diversion programs are still nascent, government-run model treatment and rehabilitation centers (MTRCs) cater to a tiny fraction of those who need them, NGOs and private centers are unevenly distributed and mainly urban, and faith-based institutions, tho highly trusted by communities, operate almost exclusively outside formal clinical protocols. The study concludes that punitive, purely biomedical, and purely spiritual approaches each fall short in isolation, and that Pakistan would benefit from an integrated model that combines medical detoxification and Medication-Assisted Treatment with evidence-based psychotherapy (cognitive behavioural therapy, motivational interviewing, family therapy) and structured faith-based components such as those piloted in Malaysia's PUSPEN centres and Indonesia's Inabah programme. Institutional collaboration, rather than institutional competition, emerges as the single most important determinant of durable recovery.
