Cheap adhesive addiction rising among women

Bangladesh faces a growing drug crisis, with an estimated 8.2 million users. Most of the narcotics are smuggled in from abroad. In a four-part series, The Daily Star explores the trafficking routes, the threats and the impacts of drug abuse. The third instalment looks at how young women, almost all of them rough sleepers, are increasingly using dandy.

It was around 5:00pm on July 22.

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Seven to eight months pregnant, Parvin Akter, 20, sat near the Farmgate Metro Rail Station with three other women, lifting a polythene bag to her face every few seconds.

Inside was adhesive.

Parvin knew the fumes could harm her unborn child. She said she wanted to stop, but the urge returned whenever she saw others inhaling it.

“I do not want my baby to be harmed because of this,” she said.

Parvin is among a growing number of women and children seen inhaling “dandy”, the street name for a cheap industrial adhesive containing toluene, in different parts of Dhaka.

During visits to several parts of the capital over the past month, The Daily Star found children, young men and notably women, almost all of them rough sleepers collecting and selling waste and scrap, inhaling the adhesive from polythene bags, bottles and tin containers.

Residents and traders said the number of women users appeared to have increased, while children remained among the most visible users.

Parvin said she had been using dandy for around eight years, beginning when she was about 12, before she was married at 13. Her mother died when she was eight. Her father remarried soon afterwards, and she said abuse by her stepmother drove her from their home in Rangpur.

She came to Dhaka with a woman from her village, first selling flowers and later collecting waste and scrap. Mixing with other children and women doing similar work led her to dandy, she said.

Parvin now collects waste around Farmgate with her husband, who also occasionally inhales dandy.

She said she uses the adhesive repeatedly and suffers from sleep problems, dizziness and occasional abdominal pain.

At Sadarghat-Shyambazar launch terminal, Shilpi Begum, a 26-year-old beggar, was seen inhaling dandy beside her two daughters, aged three and a half and two.

Shilpi said she began using dandy about a year ago after seeing other women inhaling it in the Sadarghat and Ahsan Manzil areas.

“My mother and neighbours ask me to stop,” she said. “I also want to stop, but I cannot,” she added, highlighting how her addiction was keeping her from getting a job and returning to a normal life.

Sathi, 20, who sells flowers near Ahsan Manzil, said she became addicted two months ago after her six-month-old daughter died. A friend had introduced her to the adhesive, she said.

She reported dizziness, loss of appetite, sleep problems and swelling beneath her eyes.

Unlike Parvin, who began using dandy as a child, Shilpi and Sathi started as adults.

Although there is no official data on how many women are addicted to dandy, field observations and accounts from local sources indicate that adult women users are increasingly visible in several parts of Dhaka.

Around 10:30pm, on August 9, five women aged between 19 and 26 were seen inhaling dandy under the footbridge near Ananda Cinema Hall in Farmgate. A woman, who identified herself as Snia, said she uses dandy herself. She claimed that more than 40 of around 50 floating women and sex workers in the area use it.

Local sources in Kamalapur also said the number of women users was increasing. Women using dandy were also seen in Sadarghat, Ahsan Manzil and Kawran Bazar, with some using it on footpaths and under blankets.

EASY ACCESS

A Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) study released in 2022 found that 58 percent of 1,600 street children surveyed across the country used drugs.

Of all respondents, 31.7 percent used cannabis and 15.2 percent used dandy, while 14 percent began taking drugs before turning 10.

Manjurul Islam, deputy director of the DNC, said dandy is a toluene-based adhesive used to repair shoes, rubber and leather products.

Its low price and ready availability at hardware and shoe-repair shops make it accessible to street children, many of whom use it to suppress hunger and distress, he said.

Users interviewed by this newspaper said they spend Tk 25-Tk 60 a day on dandy.

Manjurul called for licensing retail sales, permits for lawful use, regular monitoring of hardware shops, enforcement to prevent sales to children, and treatment, counselling and rehabilitation.

Another DNC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said sales could not simply be stopped because the adhesive is an industrial raw material used by furniture makers, shoe factories and thousands of cobblers.

The DNC is considering a system under which buyers would have to show a licence and explain the intended use, the official said. No formal directive has yet been issued.

At least a dozen hardware traders in Kawran Bazar, Green Road and Kachukhet told The Daily Star that they often refused to sell to suspected users.

Mohammad Sayeed, a trader in Kachukhet, said suspected users often obtained the adhesive through others.

Another trader said buyers claimed it was for shoe repairs, furniture work or rickshaw garages.

Traders said they had received no police order or government notification restricting retail sales.

DNC sources said mobile courts occasionally detain users and send them to correctional, shelter or rehabilitation centres, but such interventions have shown little sign of reducing the practice.

Dr Quazi Lutful Kabir, chief consultant of the government-run Central Drug Addiction Treatment Centre, said the 124-bed facility was being developed into a 250-bed one. For the construction, currently only 28 beds for adult male are available. It earlier had 24 bed for women and 10 for children, before the construction had begun two to three years ago.

“Even some years ago, we had treated children addicted to dandy, who were admitted under the arrangement of an NGO,” he said, adding that some of the patients had addiction to marijuana.   

SEVERE HEALTH RISKS

Dr Muntasir Maruf, associate professor at the National Institute of Mental Health, said toluene-based adhesives were highly neurotoxic and carried a severe risk of addiction.

“Acute exposure can cause euphoria, hallucinations, poor coordination, dizziness, headache and confusion. High concentrations may lead to seizures, stupor, coma, irregular heartbeat and Sudden Sniffing Death Syndrome.”

Long-term abuse can permanently damage the brain and nervous system, causing muscle weakness, numbness, tremors and memory loss, he said.

Prolonged use may also damage the liver and kidneys and cause mental health problems.

The risks are particularly serious for pregnant women.

Dr Maruf said inhalant use during pregnancy exposes both the mother and unborn child to toxic chemicals and can cause severe health complications.

“Inhalants replace oxygen in the bloodstream, putting the mother at risk of hypoxia, organ stress and fainting,” he said.

Solvents such as toluene can cause kidney and liver problems and central nervous system depression, he said. “Inhalant use also increases the risk of sudden miscarriage, stillbirth and premature labour.”

Chemical toxins can cross the placenta and affect foetal development, potentially causing low birth weight, developmental problems and behavioural difficulties, he said.