Dr.Yusuf Adam Merchant was a charismatic Founder President of Drug Abuse Information Rehabilitation and Research Centre (DAIRRC), in Mumbai. The impish smiling psychiatrist and crusader of drug rehabilitation was popularly known by the moniker Doc.
Born in a reputed business family, his childhood tendency was healing and soothing, but faced adversity from childhood, lost loved ones to dark addictions, endured heart-wrenching betrayal, and struggled with the trauma of abandonment.
Resentful of his parents, he was deviant. As a result, his father threw him out of the home and it was on the streets that he got sensitised about drug abuse. He saw the darker side of humanity, and pitted against life with all its brutality.
After his Masters in Medicine from Grant Medical College, Mumbai in 1982, as a JJ Hospital psychiatry department intern, he was drawn to the treatment of drug addicts, treated as criminals and animals. He changed tack, learning everything about drug demand reduction strategies, including drug prevention and rehabilitation.
Treating a small group of drug addicts for 15 years at his own home, he went through their withdrawals, shared their fears, their thoughts and feelings, and used his knowledge to come up with the best combination of drugs to alleviate even the most terrible mainlining heroin withdrawal.
An encounter with a heroin addict he helped recover, prompted him to establish the 60,000 sq. feet Land Rehab Centre in 1982, in Kushivali, Ambernath, Thane. At the foothills of the Haji Malang Mountain range, it gradually became a paradise for nurturing the recovery of disturbed souls. Called just ‘Land’, it promoted deaddiction through group therapy.
Filled with open, green spaces, unlike all the other rehab centres, it had cosy rooms, a gym, a football field, and people who looked happy. No one ever tried to run away.
Not everybody who came to Land was an addict. One third of them were broken for other reasons. What they had in common was an addictive personality type (hypersensitivity, high IQ, poor EQ, extreme behaviour, low self-esteem).
Unconventional, he used his instinct, sensitivity and innate sense to provide an all-encompassing aura of fortitude, healing, nurturing and compassion, enabling addicts to gain confidence and face reality.
His rehab through community living was a half way home, achieving a success ratio of 85%, helping tortured souls resurrect their lives, excluding the need for drugs and alcohol totally. He got the deadly drug MCAT (Meow Meow) banned in India by filing a PIL, when no one wanted to take on the drug mafia and made many enemies in the process.
Merchant authored several books on narcotics, including a 515 pages anthology on Narcotics, published by the Commission of European Communities, and also a bestseller on life management called Happyness: Life Lessons from a Creative Addict. He was awarded the Indian Excellence Award for Best Anti-Drug Campaigner of India.
Merchant was awarded the Indian Excellence Award for Best Anti-Drug Campaigner of India for his exemplary contribution. However, there was a darker side to him. People Against Rehab Abuse (PARA), a collective of doctors, lawyers, journalists and writers brought multiple charges of abuse against him and accused him of being a sexual predator; appointed some of his recovering junkies as medical heads, giving complete access to prescription medications due to lack of accountability; had shady financial dealings and held only an MBBS degree and had merely served an internship in psychiatry.
Merchant rejected all charges as conspiracy to malign his image. The Maharashtra Medical Council exonerated him honourably.
Diagnosed with pelvic cancer three years ago with heart complications, he passed away due to cardiac arrest in Mumbai, aged 66.
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A. Radhakrishnan is a Pune based freelance journalist, poet and short story writer.
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