Mohammed was an addict. And after staying awake for a long time, he would crash. Mohammed’s yaba habit started at work in Dhaka. At first, Mohammed enjoyed the benefits his colleague described he would enjoy. But they were unexpectedly short-lived. Mohammed began behaving erratically and came close to breakdown.

“I was awake for seven, eight, even 10 days at a time. I was taking yaba in the morning, the afternoon, in the evening, again late at night, and then working all night and not going to bed.”

“I would black out. I totally went down. After two or three days I would wake, have food, and go to bed again. But if I had any yaba, I would take it – if you have a single pill left, you will take it.”

“Our import business was with Japan so we had to work at night because of the time difference. One of my colleagues told me about yaba. He said that if I take it, it will help me stay awake, be more energetic and to work hard in the morning and late at night.”

“In the early stages of using yaba it has a lot of positive effects. Everything is enhanced with yaba,” says Dr Ashique Selim, a consultant psychiatrist specialising in addiction.

“You become more sociable… You enjoy music, cigarettes and sex more. In Bangladesh there’s a very unhealthy association between yaba and sex – you’re awake longer, you’ve got more energy, you feel more confident. If you stop using yaba, there are no withdrawal symptoms, it’s not like alcohol or heroin. But it’s the effects of yaba that are really addictive. It’s a very, very dangerous drug.”

Yaba is manufactured illicitly in industrial quantities in Myanmar and it first appeared in Bangladesh in 2002 and its use, and ultimately, its abuse has gone up since then. it is smuggled into Bangladesh in the far south-east of the country, where the border partly follows the River Naf.