Faulty Diagnosis

A Saudi psychologist blames "drugs" for the depravity stalking the land. From Arab News:

MAKKAH: Dr. Rajab Brisali, head of the Psychological Health Department in Taif, blames drugs for the domestic violence and other crimes that have started to creep into Saudi society.

“About 60 to 70 percent of the heinous crimes our society has lately witnessed, be they murder or rape, are caused by drug addition,” he said.

Brisali told Arab News that he was treating a five-year-old girl who was repeatedly raped by her drug-addict father.

“The father who lost all the means of parenting, wisdom and good judgment was sleeping with his daughter without the knowledge of her mother,” he said.

Brisali said the man was threatening his daughter with beatings if she spoke about what he was doing to her.

“As a result of his repeated raping, the girl became psychologically unstable,” he said.

He added that when the mother noted the psychological condition of her daughter she brought her to him for counseling. “I immediately reported the case to the police, but unfortunately the damage was done and the little girl is now suffering psychological depression and nightmares and is unable to mix with children of her age,” he said. Brisali also said a disturbed 18-year-old Saudi girl came to his clinic and complained that she always wanted to harm herself.

“After several sessions, I discovered that the girl was a drug addict,” he said. “Her mother was an addict, too. She used to take her young daughter with her to her red nights. The daughter saw her mother taking drugs and having sex with men. The mother started pressuring the daughter to have sex with her fellow addicts. The girl yielded to find herself a victim of drugs and prostitution.”

He also said that a woman came to his clinic and told him that her husband, who was a drug addict, used to bring his friends to her house and asked her to serve them. “The friends roamed freely in the house and she had to remain imprisoned in her bedroom,” he said.

Wow, that's quite the sordid story, Doctor. The whole mishpachah sounds ripe for reality TV--say Intervention or Celebrity Rehab. It seems to me, though, that drugs per se aren't the problem; drugs are used to numb the pain arising from the underlying problem--the "root cause," so to speak. (I got that from Dr.Drew). In which case, might the creeping depravity have something to do with having to live day in, day out under the psychological depredations of sharia?