80 percent of construction workers in Colombo addicted to drugs

Almost 80 per cent of workers at construction sites in Colombo are addicted to drugs, Director Presidential Task Force on Prevention of Drugs Dr. Samantha Kitalagama said yesterday.

“There are 10,000 persons working in various construction sites in Colombo, and there are 1000 foreign workers among them. Almost 80% of them are addicted to drugs,” Dr. Kitalagama said.

He said this was revealed in recent research carried out by the intelligence units.

He said the construction workers are a group that spreads the usage of drugs. “A Construction worker after getting addicted, convince his closest friend to use drugs after some time. This usually happens when he runs out of money to buy drugs. After getting his friend to use drugs, he gets him to buy drugs and consumes together. Eventually, the second person also gets his other friends addicted. The addiction spreads this way and the society is left with a bunch of drug addicts at the end of the day,” he explained.

It has also been found out that either contractors or owners of the buildings that are being built, get the workers to consume drugs in order to get heavy work done. (Yohan Perera)