The deadly loop: How Yaba fuels a new wave of digital addiction

Last month, while visiting a student mess in Jigatola, Dhanmondi, I witnessed something I had never seen before. In a small room, five young men were sitting together, each staring intensely at their mobile phone screens. They were gambling online.

They were playing when I arrived on Thursday night and went straight to bed. When I woke up early the next morning, they were still betting. The atmosphere felt tense and restless. When I spoke with them, they told me they had consumed Yaba before embarking on their nightly gambling routine.

By afternoon, they were on the drug again and had resumed betting. This cycle continued through Friday night into Saturday and lasted until Sunday morning when I left. For nearly three days, they rotated between consuming Yaba tablets and placing online bets, barely sleeping.

When I asked where the money came from, some said their families sent it for living expenses in Dhaka. Others earned it through tutoring or from small online ventures. What I witnessed was not an isolated incident. I later learned that similar patterns have been unfolding in many places across Dhaka.

In recent years, Yaba – a methamphetamine-based drug – has spread widely across Bangladesh. Its rapid expansion has created not only a drug crisis but also a chain reaction of behavioural addictions, particularly pornography and online gambling. Yaba floods the brain with dopamine, producing intense energy, reduced need for sleep, and heightened sexual desire. When the effects wear off, users experience irritability, anxiety, and an overwhelming urge to consume it again.

In my conversations with more than ten users across age groups, one word kept coming up: "cravings". These cravings drive a cycle of excess. Users describe taking multiple tablets and feeling compelled to continue. The stimulant energy often redirects toward screens.

It is here that pornography and gambling become intertwined with Yaba use.

Several users reported turning to pornography after consuming Yaba due to increased sexual desire. Some described watching videos for hours in a single sitting and gradually becoming desensitised, seeking increasingly extreme material – a pattern of increased tolerance and escalation.

Online gambling has become another powerful outlet for Yaba-fuelled impulsivity. With smartphones and cheap internet, betting platforms are instantly accessible and aggressively promoted. Boys – some as young as 14 – and middle-aged men now gamble for hours, even days, after consuming the drug. The financial barrier is minimal; bets can be placed within seconds and with small amounts of money.

Users describe gambling as almost irresistible after taking Yaba. Wins reinforce excitement; losses trigger desperate attempts to recover money. Several individuals said they now gamble instead of watching pornography, believing it to be an improvement. Yet the pattern remains the same: compulsion and loss of control.

Together, Yaba, pornography, and gambling form a destructive triangle driven by amplified reward-seeking behaviour. Each reinforces the other, creating a cycle that is difficult to break.

The consequences extend far beyond individual users. Methamphetamine amplifies paranoia, irritability, and aggression, intensifying household tensions and, in some cases, contributing to gender-based violence. Findings from a study titled "Data and Evidence to End Extreme Poverty (DEEP)" by the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), BRAC University, show how methamphetamine addiction destabilises already vulnerable households.

In focus group discussions in urban Dhaka, community members described how drug use and gambling drain income and fuel domestic conflict. One respondent explained: "If a wife earns Tk10,000 a month, the husband may steal it. If she refuses, he beats her. The husbands use drugs, gamble, contribute no income, and the children are left crying."

Such accounts reveal how addiction accelerates debt, asset depletion, and chronic poverty, with women bearing the heaviest burden. As productive assets are lost and debts accumulate, families enter long-term hardship, with intergenerational consequences specifically affecting women and girls. Addiction does not merely harm individuals; it erodes household stability and future opportunity.

There are also growing concerns about risky sexual behaviour associated with stimulant use. Increased impulsivity can lead to unsafe sexual practices and multiple partners, raising public health risks in a context where sexual health awareness remains limited. Among adolescents, the impact is equally alarming: disengagement from education, defiance toward parents, and declining aspirations are becoming recurring concerns.

Perhaps most troubling are persistent allegations that networks surrounding Yaba distribution extend into positions of influence. A drug epidemic cannot be contained if parts of the system meant to control it are compromised.

This is no longer an isolated drug problem. It is a broader crisis of addiction in the digital age. Bangladesh faces a generation at risk – not only from narcotics but from an interconnected web of behavioural addictions amplified by technology. Ignoring this trend will only deepen the damage. The time to act is now through stronger regulation, enforcement accountability, public awareness, and honest national conversations. Without meaningful intervention, the cost will be borne by the generations to come.

Md Ashikur Rahman is a Research Associate at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), BRAC University.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.