Drug addiction a growing concern in Columbus community

Ujwal Shahi last saw his younger brother the night of July 14, but didn’t realize the significance until it was too late.

His 23-year-old brother was often gone from their home on Columbus’ Northeast Side for days and sometimes as long as a week.

The Shahi family, who came to the United States as refugees from Nepal 10 years ago, couldn’t understand why Shreejan Shahi did what he did; they simply believed he liked his privacy.

It was no different that week in mid-July. The Shahis hadn’t seen Shreejan in three days when his friends told them July 17 that he had been taken to a hospital the previous night. It wasn’t until two days later that they discovered that he had died on the ambulance ride to the hospital from a suspected overdose.

Substance abuse and mental health issues are becoming a growing concern within immigrant communities as individuals try to let go of their often traumatic pasts and adapt to their new homes in the U.S.

There are an increasing number of substance abuse problems within these communities, said Maureen Pritchard, program manager at North Community Counseling Centers, who has been working with families like the Shahis in the Bhutanese Nepali community in Columbus. But many parents can’t even conceive that their children could be using drugs, she said.

“I hadn’t noticed anything,” Suresh Shahi said of his son Shreejan. “He just drank and smoked when he had some money.”

Shreejan didn’t have much money most of the time, and so the family didn’t worry too much, he said.

The Shahis moved to Columbus from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2017, seeking to better their lives. Suresh Shahi, now 51, and 25-yearold Ujwal work at FedEx Supply Chain in Groveport. Meanwhile, Shreejan Shahi had been unemployed for about six months after claiming to have injured himself playing soccer, Ujwal said.

His family said they wanted him to get a job and do better, and they figured he eventually would.

“He was my only brother,” Ujwal Shahi said. “He wasn’t a bad person.”

Ujwal Shahi continues to question why his brother turned to drugs.

“My brother wasn’t on the streets,” he said. “My brother had a family. He had a home.”

Many refugee families see the signs of drug addiction, but don’t connect it to substance abuse, Pritchard said.

That’s often because the parents are still trying to figure out the culture of the U.S., she said, while their children are using their parents’ ignorance and lack of English skills to their advantage.

Many youths who have lived in refugee camps are placed in lower grades when they’re resettled in America to match their education level. Although this helps them academically, it also poses a social challenge because they’re in a classroom with sometimes much younger kids, Pritchard said.

“Refugees have unrecognized trauma,” said Uma Acharya, a mental health specialist at NCCC and a board member of the Bhutanese Community of Central Ohio. “People don’t understand that this needs to be treated properly.”

Acharya has been helping to connect the local Bhutanese Nepali community to assistance with mental health issues and substance abuse.

Rajesh Gajmer, who fled with his family from Nepal, said he has fallen into the pit of drug abuse.

The 25-year-old said he began using heroin in 2015 and quit high school. His parents think he only smokes marijuana, he said.

“I want to get out. I really want to stop,” he said.

That’s why Gajmer said he sought help in 2018 from the case managers at the Bhutanese community center, who accompanied him to North Community Counseling Centers to get treatment. Even with the help, Gajmer said he relapsed when he couldn’t cope up with the withdrawal symptoms.

Unlike Gajmer, many immigrants don’t talk about or seek help for substance abuse, Pritchard said. “There’s a cultural taboo,” she said.

Gajmer knew Shreejan Shahi for about two years. He said he saw Shahi a couple of hours before his death. They were smoking heroin — or “china” as they called it — with their friends. But he said he left the group before anything happened to Shreejan.

Gajmer said he knows of four Bhutanese Nepalis, including Shahi, who have died of overdoses in the past two years alone.

Although many in the refugee community still refuse to talk about substance abuse and mental health issues, some have started to recognize the problem, Pritchard said.

“Drug use just got on their radar,” she said. “This may be a sign that they are integrating.”

The Shahi family hasn’t received an official ruling from the coroner’s office yet on the cause of Shreejan’s death, but they said it doesn’t really matter.

“What’s the point now?” Ujwal Shahi asked. “We have lost him already.”