Drug Addiction

Drug addiction is a growing problem in Bangladesh. Many people are taking a drug called yabba, which comes from Thailand and is similar to speed. It’s an expensive drug so it’s the well-off young people who are doing it. A lot of those I met while researching the book didn’t realise they were going to get hooked. None of them knew how harmful it is. I grew up in Canada and Saudi Arabia, and had learnt about drugs from an early age, but in Bangladesh, talking about drugs is taboo. Young people have no access to knowledge here.As I was speaking to people, common threads started emerging. Many addicts had previously attempted to detox, they had trouble with the police, parental relationships that had completely broken down, and had been being kicked out of home at least once. So I wanted to string these threads together in my book.My masters thesis, which was on happiness, was also related to my book. I interviewed really, really poor women in slums about how they defined happiness. That research became the voice of the character Falani, a single mother who sells drugs from her slum.