World
Overdosed
Israel finds young olim
are susceptible to
drug abuse.
Rachel Bar-Hamburger stands in front of a poster in her office in Jerusalem.
Karin Kloosterman
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Tel Aviv
I
was like a leaf blowing in the wind"
Yoni, 24, says of the days when he
arrived in a Tel Aviv suburb from
Moscow at age 8 with his mother, brother
and extended family.
He was the good boy, the family intro-
vert. No one could imagine that at age 12
Yoni would be smoking cigarettes, using
marijuana at 13 and abusing cocaine and
heroin by 15.
His experience is not unique: A recent
study shows that young immigrants in
Israel are using harder drugs more .fre-
quently than the average Israeli teen.
The research, conducted by the Israel
Anti-Drug Authority, found in 2005 that
4.7 percent of new immigrant teens were
using hard drugs such as heroin, LSD and
cocaine on a regular basis, compared to
2.6 percent of Israeli-born teens.
"There is a difference and it is sta-
tistically significant," says Rachel Bar-
Hamburger, the,anti-drug authority's chief
scientist. The survey sampled 779 new
immigrants and 3,969 native Israelis.
Early on, Yoni noticed differences
between his home and those of his Israeli
peers. He found comfort in a clique of
Russian-speaking youth at school; using
heroin together, they felt superior to the
Israeli-born teens who were smoking
marijuana.
"'Pot is for children' is what we used to
say to them," Yoni recalls.
The heroin addiction carried through to
army service in a combat unit.
"I shot a gun while I was high," he
admits. "There were a lot of us who were
high in the army."
Yoni hid his addiction for two years,
but was caught by an army commander at
age 20. It probably saved his life. "I had a
weapon and was thinking all the time of
using it against myself," he says.
Yoni was sent to a detox center in
Jerusalem and later received long-term
counseling through Al Sam, an anti-drug
organization for younger addicts.
With locations throughout the country,
Al Sam, or No Drugs, offers one-on-one
drug therapy for teens and soldiers. Some
20 percent of its clients are new immi-
grants.
It was there that Yoni explored his feel-
ings — new ones and remnatts of those.
he kept bottled inside from childhood.
Moving to Israel contributed to his grow-
ing pains and played a major role in his
addiction, he says.
"I was lonely and lost and didn't feel a
part of anything:' he says.
Despite the gap in drug use between
olim and native Israelis in their youth, by
age 18 — the beginning of army service
— there is virtually no difference between
the groups, Bar-Hamburger said. The
numbers suggest that army service has a
leveling effect on new immigrant groups.
Bar-Hamburger says studies to date
can't provide information on which immi-
grant group is faring worst, but the Anti-
Drug Authority and Al Sam recognize that
Ethiopians and those from the former
Soviet Union need attention.
One problem with previous surveys is
that they were conducted at school. Youths
with serious drug problems often don't
attend school. Troubled teen immigrants
also often cannot communicate well in
Hebrew.
Despite that, "I don't think the drug use
differences between new olim and sabras
are due to the pressures of immigration;'
Bar-Hamburger says. "Something else is
happening there."
She was reluctant to jump to any con-
clusions. Since 1989, Bar-Hamburger has .
commissioned about 300 drug-use studies
in Israel; only recently has any difference
emerged between olim — defined in her
studies as any person who immigrated to
Israel after 1989 — and native Israelis..
Bar-Hamburger surmises that young
immigrants may bring cultural drug hab-
its with them. The thought dawned on her
when she was in Amsterdam and saw the
Dutch drinking beer in the morning.
"That was the habit of the people in
Holland. Those that drink in the morning
aren't necessarily alcoholics; it may be a
habit:' she says.."This study is not about
habits. It is about numbers?'
Yoni, now clean and working in high-
tech, says his birth country contributed
significantly to his drug habit.
"The seed of my problems existed
already in Moscow:' he says. "In Israel, the
seed was able to take root.
"If you saw me four years ago, I was half
my size and on the road to death;' he says.
"I lost all my fear of dying?' E
A nswering
Israel's Critics
The Charge:
The American media downplays
Palestinian suffering and takes
Israel's side in the Middle East con-
flict.
The Answer:
Recent examples of Arab manipula-
tion of the media — inflated death
counts in Qana, Lebanon; a doctored
photo by Reuters; and the kidnap-
ping of Fox News Channel's Steve
Centanni — reveal that accurate
media coverage from the Arab
side is difficult, if not impossible.
Complete freedom of the press and
freedom of movement encourages
fair coverage while reporters are on
Israeli soil; however press restric-
tions and.intimidation-are the rule
in Israel's neighboring countries.
- Allan Gale, Jewish Community
Council of Metropolitan Detroit
JIKI
September 14 2006
29