Despite daily threats from “foreign embassies and international mafias” since assuming the post of interior minister, Elias Murr vowed Friday to press on with the country’s anti-drug campaign.
Murr’s comments came during a tour of the Umm al-Nour Rehabilitation Center in Faytaroun, which he followed with a visit to the Anti-Drug Bureau at the Hobeish police station on Bliss Street.
Leaving no doubt of his no-nonsense attitude toward drugs, Murr reiterated that combating the problem of drugs and drug addiction remains at the top of the ministry’s agenda.
In Faytaroun, he toured the three-floor center, which, despite a capacity of 50, is now treating 70 recovering addicts.
“We have a long waiting list,” said Gaby Debbaneh, one of the center’s officials.
Patients at the center follow a four-phase treatment program, with each phase lasting three months. In addition to its role in treating the psychological and physical effects of drug addiction, Umm al-Nour manages another center which focuses on the social issues facing former addicts. Debbaneh said that the center also has “a special program for the parents of the addict, one that facilitates the process of treatment.”
Murr also heard details of specific drug-recovery cases from several patients.
Hisham, 24, has been at the center for a year, and said he became an addict five years ago.
He complained of maltreatment upon his arrest, saying: “When we are addicts, we become mentally and physically ill, and what we need is psychological help. All we got when we were arrested was a couple of slaps in the face.”
He also pointed out the failure of the prison system in dealing with drug addicts and users.
“Addicts always pass drugs to each other, even when they are imprisoned,” he said. “This leads investigators to label us as drug traders and not addicts. Consequently, the judicial verdict is harsher and does not take our weak psychological status into consideration.”
Hisham also described how during detention, criminals taught addicts to steal.
“I am an addict, not a criminal,” he said, adding that due to the verdict, his record has been tainted, making it harder for him to re-enter society, especially at the professional level.
For his part, Murr commended the center’s efforts to “work in the best interest of our society and our children,” a position that he said he fully supported as a father of three.
Responding to Hisham’s complaints, Murr, who said he was touched by the patients’ testimonies, said his ministry was working to stop the maltreatment of drug offenders, whom he described as “the victims of traders and distributors.”
Murr also said that Roumieh Prison, where many addicts are detained, was a place for criminals. He therefore said that the government had allocated LL50 billion to build four new prisons, one of which will cater to the needs of arrested drug users before they are transferred to rehabilitation centers.
But the campaign against drug trafficking has not been easy, said Murr, who has received daily threats since becoming minister, along with “messages from foreign embassies and international mafias” that import illicit crops.
Behind every trader there is a bigger supplier and behind all of them are whole countries, the economies of which depend on the drug trade, he said. “But this is part of the anti-drug price that I have to pay, just as every one of us is paying his share of the price to curb this unwanted malady.”
After leaving the center, Murr met with members of the Anti-Drug Bureau at Hamra’s Hobeish police station. The minister described the station as a place of “science, experience and humane understanding where officers investigate the arrested with a conscience.”
Murr said his visit was the first time an interior minister had visited Hobeish, a place where he felt “10 times more proud than when I am at my desk in the ministry,” due to the record-breaking 1,780 drug-related arrests this year.

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