In recent years, Cambodia has experienced a surge in the use of methamphetamines, known here and in Thailand as "crazy medicine." Apart from the 11 government-run centers, drug users in Cambodia have few places to turn for help with their addictions.
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A vacant lot littered with used needles.
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A drug dealer working in a poor neighborhood in Phnom Penh.
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In some cases, desperate families commit their relatives to the centers, but most former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had been locked up there against their will. At left, an addict passed out in a Phnom Penh slum.
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The United Nations has estimated that as many as half a million people in Cambodia may be drug users.
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A heroin addict shot up in a vacant lot in Phnom Penh.
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Another heroin addict said he was whipped by authorities at a detention center with a twisted metal wire as thick as his thumb until he passed out. "They used a blanket to cover me and they beat me," said the detainee, who insisted that only his first name, Chandara, be used. "There were 10 of them beating me."
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Nguyen Minh Tam said he got used to the routine during three months in a government drug detention center: three punches to the chest when he woke up in the morning and three more before he went to bed.
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In a report last month, Human Rights Watch described in detail abuses in 11 government-run centers that included electric shocks, beatings, rape, forced labor and forced donations of blood. At left, drug addicts in the Korsang Center in Phnom Penh.
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Treatment for the addicts "involving both the physical abuse and the involuntary administration of an experimental drug" have stirred concern in Cambodia since they were documented recently by the New York-based monitoring group Human Rights Watch.
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Ban Sophea, on the other hand, an emaciated man who supports his heroin habit by collecting used cans and bottles, said things were quite different for him during a carefully monitored 10-day detention. "They gave us medicine three times a day from a bottle that looked like a whisky bottle," he said. "The rest of the time we just wasted time and ate. They let us dance and eat cake. We were eating all the time."
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The centers appear to be used not only for drug users but as a means to clear the streets of vagrants, beggars, prostitutes and the mentally ill, according to Human Rights Watch and the reports of other former detainees. Workers from the Korsang Clinic often tour slums.
Photo: Justin Mott for The New York Times
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