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From the editor-in-chief
(Aroon Purie)
Visit any night club or rave party and it’s quite amazing how much energy today’s young party people possess; they literally dance thenight away, riding on an adrenaline rush. A closer scrutiny will
reveal the real reason. Many of them are high on party drugs, a necessaryingredient of the clubbing or rave scene. Indeed, the club scene and raveparties have popularised an assortment of synthetic drugs which manyyoung people mistakenly believe are harmless. It’s not just club and raves,substance abuse in India is literally on a new high, in fact a new every-thing: scary new numbers, new drug cocktails, new sources like illegalInternet pharmacies, and new users like those working late night shifts at India’s ubiquitous call centres.
In the last decade, drug use in India has undergone a demographicand social shift which could be a public health disaster in the making.Usage of cocaine and heroin has declined globally while alcohol, opiumand cannabis, traditional drugs in India, have given way to syntheticdrugs—especially Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATS) and prescriptiondrugs. If half the world’s ATS users live in Asia, India’s contribution is awhopping 29 per cent, according to UN figures. Availability is anotherissue. They can be bought and sold over thecounter, sourced via the Internet, sent throughthe local courier. The World Drug Report saysIndia has of late become a hub of drugs soldthrough illegal Internet pharmacies. For the firsttime in India’s history, drugs have come out inthe open; they are visible and not illegal but theyare also dangerous.
For a generation that craves quick and easysolutions, these drugs appeal to the needs oftoday’s societies and have become part of mod-ern lifestyles—recreationally and occupationally.Their use is believed to enhance performance,including sexual. They are often taken in discreetpill form which avoids the dangers of injection or the social stigma of smoking. Changing demographics is another worry. Today’s abuser isyounger, affluent and open to try a range of drugs. They are professionals,students, women who seek chemical comfort to ease life’s stresses andstrains—do a job better, stay awake longer, feel relaxed. A growing tribeof the young workforce in our call centres is taking to drugs, says the UN.It’s now a new landscape and a different culture of drug abuse that’s staring India in the face. The Union Ministry for Social Justice andEmpowerment is alarmed enough to begin work on the first-ever national policy on prevention of substance abuse.
For many young people, it may be too little, too late. According to recent data, among those involved in drug and substance abuse in India ,13.1 per cent are below 20 years. Party and performance-enhancingdrugs may be ‘cool’ but are highly addictive. With 70 per cent of the population below 35, the loss in terms of human potential may be incalcu-lable. Our cover story was put together by Deputy Editor Damayanti Dattawho recalls a mother in a de-addiction clinic threatening to commit suicide if the doctor could not check her teenage son’s drug habit.Substance abuse may be a growing problem but like most things in India,all it needs is strict enforcement and regulation to keep it in check. The alternative could be a generation lost in synthetic heaven.
OUR JUNE2006 COVER
AUGUST 30, 2010 u INDIA TODAY 10
www.indiatoday.inEditor-in-Chief: Aroon PurieChief Executive Officer: Ashish Bagga
Editor: Prabhu ChawlaManaging Editors: Dilip Bobb, Shankkar Aiyar, Kaveree BamzaiEditor-at-Large: S. PrasannarajanDeputy Editors: Farzand Ahmed, Damayanti Datta,Ashok K. Damodaran, Abhijit Dasgupta, Sharda Ugra MUMBAI: Malini BhuptaSenior Editors: Priya Sahgal, Sandeep Unnithan AHMEDABAD: Uday Mahurkar HYDERABAD: Amarnath K. Menon LUCKNOW: Subhash MishraArt Editor: Sapnnaa KapoorAssociate Editors: Bhavna Vij-Aurora, Nivedita Mukherjee,S. Sahaya Ranjit, Shafi Rahman THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: M.G. Radhakrishnan Assistant Editor: JAIPUR: Rohit PariharSpecial Correspondents: CHANDIGARH: Arvind Chhabra BANGALORE: Stephen David, Nirmala RavindranPATNA: Amitabh SrivastavaPrincipal Correspondents: Mihir Srivastava, Nandini VaishBANGALORE: Swagata Sen BHOPAL: Ambreesh Mishra Senior Correspondent: MUMBAI: Nishika PatelCopy Desk: Nardeep Singh Dahiya (Senior Editor),Sangram Keshari Parhi (Copy Editor), Anamika Chatterjee,Kaushik Deka, Rahul Kumar, Anika Mohla, Shilpi, Priyanka Sood,Shveta Srivastava, Rahul Tewari, Priya Verma, Anju YadavPhoto Department: Hemant Chawla (Photo Editor),Sipra Das, Subir Halder, Yasbant Negi, Ravi Sahani,Vikram Sharma, Reuben Singh AHMEDABAD: Shailesh Raval CHENNAI: H.K. Rajashekar MUMBAI: Mandar Deodhar, Bhaskar Paul,Rashmi Hajela (Chief Photo Researcher)Infographics and Illustrations: Saurabh Singh (Chief of Graphics),Prashant ChaudharyArt Department: Madhu Bhaskar (Art Director), Ranjita Bhattacharji,Vandana Nayar, Jyoti K. Singh, Madhumangal Singh (Deputy ArtDirectors), Rasshi Ajmanni Girdhar, Vipin Gupta, Pushvinder KaurProduction Department: Surinder Hastu (Chief of Production),Harish Aggarwal, Naveen GuptaChief of Information Bureau: Rajesh Sharma
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Volume XXXV Number 35; For the week August 24-30, 2010, released on August 23
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40 INDIA TODAY ◆ AUGUST 30, 2010 AUGUST 30, 2010 ◆ INDIA TODAY 41
Cover story DRUG ADDICTION
Iam not into drugs,” she repeats five times in course of a single chat. And shechanges the storyline of her first brush with drugs in Delhi so often—in one sheis offered a joint by a call centre colleague in the office car, in another a stranger cajoles her to snort in a toilet at Hotel Samrat—that you startdoubting her claims. Whichever version you believe, there’s no dithering when she describes the “cocktail” that quietly changes hands every midnightshift at her call centre: “Cough syrup and rum, pepsi or coke, with crushed
spasmo proxyvon tablets and a bit of iodex.” But the 21-year-old insists that she has never tasted it. She doesn’t need such “pharm kicks” to survive the daily grindof sleeplessness, abusive customers, fake accents and tight targets. But ask her if
By Damayanti Datta
she minds working with them and she balks: “Oh no. Theyare really cool people.”
Enter the world of new urban junkies, where drugs arecool. From young men working the corporate ladder, nubilewomen next to you in a lounge bar, call centre employeestaking 10 calls to the hour, students in high-pressure profes-sional courses, pimply-gangly teens drooling over the Net tothe sweet kid next door—they are all around you. Not de-crepit creatures of the night, inhabiting hidden depths ofcities and indistinguishable from criminals. Nor Page 3snorteratti who abuse drugs to be “in” the scene. But regu-lar people who just want to smoothen life’s little issues—doa job better, appear more cheerful, stay awake longer, feelmore relaxed. As new drugs findtheir way into urban India, theyseek a dash of chemical com-fort—easy to procure, cheap tobuy—that allows them to navi-gate under the radar of social andlegal scrutiny. From metros toTier II towns, the conventionalunderstanding of who does whichdrug, where, how and why isbeing turned on its head as sub-stance abuse becomes a part ofeveryday social activity.
It’s a trend that’s been cap-tured by the new World DrugReport (WDR) 2010 of the UnitedNations Office on Drugs andCrime (UNODC). The report indi-cates a shift towards new drugsand new markets, increased druguse in developing countries andthe growing abuse of ampheta-mine-type stimulants (ATS) alongwith prescription drugs. “It pointsto a different culture of drugabuse,” says Cristina Albertin,the UNODC representative for
South Asia. The report has set off a buzz on the sixth floor ofShastri Bhavan in the Capital. “We are working on the firstever national policy on prevention of substance abuse inIndia,” says Mukul Wasnik, Union Minister for Social Justiceand Empowerment (MSJE). “Awareness is the need of thehour.” Joint Secretary Purnima Singh fleshes it out: there willbe more awareness via curricula from medical colleges toschools, strict vigilance on social networking sites, periodicnational surveys on drug abuse, careful monitoring ofchemists, drug demand reduction as a public health policy,shift in treatment from detox and rehab to substitution ther-apy, humane treatment of patients in de-addiction centres.And all that in convergence with concerned ministries.
“Already the National SampleSurvey Organization is working ona large-scale survey across thecountry at our behest to capturethe changing profile of drug abusein the country,” she adds.
It’s a profile aided by technol-ogy. Anil is 15 and spends morehours on the Internet than atschool. His philosophy of life isshaped by cyberspace: take whatyou like and leave what you don’t.And right now he wants to “take”all the information that he can onan insignificant flower calledMorning Glory. But it’s not theflower; he wants the seeds. He isalready a part of half-a-dozenherb web groups and has locatedone that can courier him the seeds.After that, he will move on to web-sites that can deliver petroleumether. He will then comb throughErowid.org—the drug databaseonline that chronicles trip reportsand dosages—to pick and choosean easy recipe. His aim is simple:
New profile: Boosting performance is the key issue for a growingcrowd of younger, well-off, educated urbanmen and women, inclined to try a range ofdrugs.Age of initiation averages at 17.
New users: There’s a crisis in the call centres of the countrywith 27 per cent of workers using drugs, new research shows.
New drugs:Party drugs,designer drugs, metro drugs—call itwhat you will. Synthetic chemicalsand mind-altering amphetamines are the new rage in Asia with India being a major contributor.
New channels: Drugs via Internet and couriers are in.India is now a hub of drugs soldthrough illegal Internet pharmaciesand courier companies.
THE NEW URBAN
It’s a crazed new world out there with regular city dwellers riding the chemical wave
Photo by GETTY IMAGES, Photoimaging by SAURABH SINGH
he wants to be a “drug geek” and kickoff a clandestine career by creating themagic potion for homegrown LSD. The15-year-old doesn’t know that he is asitting duck for drug traffickers, whotarget social networking sites to recruityoungsters to work as peddlers. Hisworried parents do not know that ac-cording to WDR 2010 India has becomea hub of drugs sold through illegalInternet pharmacies. But they have gotin touch with Taralika Lahiri, whoheads the National Detectives andCorporate Consultants in Delhi, andasked her to “keep an eye” on him andhis friends. It’s a new trend that’semerging, feels Lahiri.
Behind the changing profile of the“new junkie” is the frightening reality
of new drugs of use. Synthetic drugs(psychoactive substances produced ina lab) are the flavour of the season. Andthey cover a wide range—from mind-altering amphetamines, ecstasy, LSD
and other expensive, hard-to-get de-signer drugs to the easily available andpocket-friendly prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines. Check outthe National Drug DependenceTreatment Centre (NDDTC) at All IndiaInstitute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS),where over 32,000 drug abusers turnup every year and 21,000 more getcommunity care. Their data shows that opiate users (natural and semi-syn-thetic poppy pod extracts—opium toheroin) upped from 22 per cent to 42per cent between 2000 and 2009, but
synthetic drug users zoomed quietly inless time to account for 15 per cent of footfalls. “That’s the major factor behind the changing profile of drugabuse in India,” says Dr Rajat Ray, whoheads NDDTC. “Globally the main ‘prob-lem drugs’—cocaine and heroin—areon a decline, while pharma abuse is ona steady high.”
“The misuse of pharma drugs, suchas pain-killers, sedatives, anxiolytics,hypnotics and synthetic opioids likebuprenorphine, as well as polydrug useis steadily rising,” says Suresh Kumar,deputy director of the National Centrefor Drug Use Prevention under MSJE. A2008 UNODC Rapid Situation andResponse Assessment (RSRA) among9,465 people between age 21 and 30 in
five South Asian countries captures thechange. Of the 5,800 respondents fromIndia, 43 per cent were found to use“drug cocktails”—with over 64 per centinjecting painkiller propoxyphene and76 per cent buprenorphine. Of the 359women sampled, 16 per cent werefound to resort to sleeping pills and 18per cent to painkillers. Add ampheta-mines and you get as noxious a cocktailas you can: India is the largest con-sumer of heroin in South Asia, reportsWDR 2010. But it’s slowly emerging asone of the world’s biggest manufactur-ing hubs of ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine—the precursor chemicalsused in amphetamines. If half theworld’s ATS users live in Asia (WDR 2008),India’s contribution to it would bearound 29 per cent (WDR 2009).
On a hot summer afternoon, abunch of young men lie around in theSpartan dorm of the de-addiction cen-ter in Vasant Kunj, Delhi. All thin asrakes, all united in despair, all clutchingon to whatever little dignity they’ve got.But they are not alone. FranklinLazarus, 46, is talking to them about hisown drug-dotted journey of 26 years—
from the first sniff to his ultimate “re-birth” as a man free of addiction. Hecame to the Society for Promotion ofYouth and Masses (SPYM) seeking help.Today, he works as a counsellor here tohelp others like him. To Rajesh Kumar,the man who founded SPYM, it was eas-ier to reach out to Franklin’s genera-tion. “Young people were morereceptive then,” he says. That’s the ver-dict of other specialists in drug inter-vention, too. “Today’s abuser isyounger, well-off and inclined to try arange of drugs, even while the categoryof economically backward drug addictcontinues to exist,” says MuktaPuntambekar, deputy director ofMuktangan Rehabilitation Center inPune. Agrees Dr Anita Rao, who heads
the TTRC Research Centre in Chennai:“Earlier, wives used to accompany pa-tients. Today, mothers bring them in.”To Father Joe Pereira, chief of KripaFoundation, Mumbai, “It’s the social ac-ceptance of and easy access to drugsthat explain the dynamics of change inthe drug abuse pattern today.”
In an insidious manner, white-collaraddiction is coming out of the wood-works of India Inc. Consider AarthiRangarajan, 27, of Chennai. You don’tbecome the star performer in a top-notch software company unless you aresmart. Even a year back, Rangarajanhad that easy confidence of someonewho knows where they are headed. Thegirl from an orthodox Thanjavur familybrought her parents over, bought a flat
42 INDIA TODAY ◆ AUGUST 30, 2010 AUGUST 30, 2010 ◆ INDIA TODAY 43
Cover story DRUG ADDICTION
“THE MAIN ‘PROBLEM DRUGS’—COCAINE ANDHEROIN—ARE ON A DECLINE,WHILE PHARMAABUSEIS ON A HIGH. DRUG COCKTAILING, MIX-AND-MATCHOF SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS IS THE NEW FLAVOUR.”
IMAGESBAZAAR
DR RAJAT RAY, Chief, National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, AIIMS
KETAMINE a vet anaesthetic,also called the date rape drug.Meant to relax, it’s 10 to 20 timesstronger than the sedativeValium. Overdosing can be fatal.
METHYLONE & mCPPdesigner drugs that appeared first on the Dutchdrug market. Oftenused by psychia-trists toprobe theserotoninfunction ofthe brain.
SUBSTANCE OFCHOICE
MAPPING THE COUNTRY
It’s not just one substance; most userstake this and that and some in between
Drug use has its own regional flavour
76% Cannabis
61% are working professionals
61%of drug users in SouthAsia are from India
34% of women are hooked to pills
54% use drugs before casual sex
DELHIHigh on Ecstasy
PUNJABNew hotspot
MUMBAISwears by Ice
CHENNAIHub of date rapeKetamine
KOLKATADotes on Meth
LUCKNOWRaves on Yaba
NORTH-EASTInto injectingdrugs
BANGALORETeens sniff andhuff Toluene
43%Drug cocktails
76% Buprenorphine
70% Heroin chasing
64% Propoxyphene
Graphic by PRASHANT CHAUDHARY/www.indiatodayimages.com
Source: Rapid Situation and Response Assessment (RSRA) of HIV/AIDS-related risk behaviours... UNODC 2008, World Drug Reports, 2007-10; UNODC Reports, 2008-2010
YABA a brand new psychotropicdrug, gives a kick four timesstronger than Ecstasy. Known to cause intense sexual arousal,it leads to a crash once the effect wears off. Overdosing can cause death.
ICE known as crank, glass orcrystal meth. Powerful, very addictive and is spreading fast.Looks like crystal chunks. Haseuphoric effects. Can cause erratic, violent behaviour.
WHO DOPES NOWA new demography and a new agenda
FUTURESYNTHETIC
85%of respondents fromIndia are literate
44 INDIA TODAY ◆ AUGUST 30, 2010 AUGUST 30, 2010 ◆ INDIA TODAY 45
Cover story DRUG ADDICTION
and gave them a taste of the good lifethey’ve never had. But the heady wayto the top proved slippery, as her jet-setparty lifestyle led to an implosion ofdrugs and casual sex. Today, she is in ade-addiciton centre, with a high level ofHIV in her blood. She doesn’t meet any-one, not even her parents. “Dangerousexperimentation with drugs is rampantin the cities,” says Dr Pratima Murthy,who heads the De-addiction Centre atthe National Institute of Mental Healthand Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) inBangalore. “We see a lot of young pro-fessionals, who are driven to drugs bypeer pressure, boredom, stress anddisposable income.” The RSRA sample
survey found 62 per cent of drugabusers to be employed.
A sign of the time is a new type ofcorporate service: background screen-ing and substance abuse testing. Wayback in 1997, the Federation of IndianChamber of Commerce and Industry(FICCI) along with UNODC and theInternational Labor Organisation (ILO)had taken up a project to integrate drugprevention strategies into the manage-ment practice of enterprises. ILO stud-ies had revealed that employees whouse drugs miss work more often, areless healthy, and more prone to harm-ing themselves and others in the work-place. India Inc was hardly interested.
With rising affluence, stress at work-place and greater social acceptability ofdrug abuse, however, IT, ITes and multi-nationals are coming forward to imple-ment drug testing at the workplace.“The awareness that substance abusemay affect the workplace has seen anupward trend in the last two years,”says Anil Dhar, one of the top bosses of the Gurgaon-based AuthBridgeResearch Service. “We see mostly opi-ates and marijuana abuse by the 20–40age band, including women,” he adds.“It is an ongoing process and urinesamples are usually taken withoutprior notice to the employees.”
Are addicts made or born? Ask psy-chiatrists and they will tell you it’s as astudent that an addict is “born”. If in2001, the age of initiation stood at 20,today it averages at 17, says the UNODC.Is the trend dipping further? Payel wasjust 14 when she started using whiten-ers, the correction fluid ink. Much as cu-riosity killed the cat, the Kolkata girl
ventured into the noxious world of in-halant addiction when she found herclassmates at it. From 8-10 bottles a dayshe moved to anti-anxiety drugs, alco-hol and ganja. A drug regime made pos-sible by her father’s premature death,her mother’s workload as the solebread-winner and the lack of supervi-sion at home. The 20-year-old today isfree of drugs, but what happened to heris a quintessential sign of the times.“Whiteners contain toluene, an addic-tive solvent used in paints, chemicals,pharma and rubber industries,” says DrAnju Dhawan, assistant professor,NDDTC-AIIMS. “They have inherent prop-erties that lead to repeat use and eupho-ria. But prolonged‘sniffing’ or ‘huffing’ ofToluene can cause per-manent brain damageand death.” TheVidyasagar Institute ofMental Health and Neuro-Sciences (VIMHANS) in Delhigets about 10-14 cases aweek. “These bottles,available at around Rs 26at any stationery shop arewithin easy access of chil-dren,” says psychiatristDr Jitendra Nagpal. “Theyshould be banned.” One-time star vocalist, RabiulIslam, a UNODC resource inAssam, reports rampantuse of glue, like Dendrite,among pre-teens in a re-cent survey .
School children seemto be experimenting with a wholerange of drugs. A 2010 study on 2,000Shimla school students by the NGO
Youth Enlightening the Society alongwith Indira Gandhi Medical College,points in that direction: over 55 percent boys and 24 per cent girls are reg-ular drug users, with 29 per centhooked to cannabis, cough syrups andopium. Abhishek Verma, 21, whostarted “sniffing” at the age of 15, cer-tainly understands why: “It was cool,rebellious and heady. I could do it inclass and the teacher wouldn’t know.Soon I became the most popular personin school,” says the son of a doctor cou-ple who still hasn’t managed to come to
terms with his addiction. Age 15emerges as the most vulnerable age ofinitiation in yet another study at fiveprofessional colleges of Berhampur inOrissa in 2008, where peer pressurepushed 59 per cent students towarddrug abuse. In a 2004 study at two pre-mier medical colleges in Kolkata,“friends” emerged as the primary influ-encers with 47 per cent students whoare into problematic drug use.Chandan Saikia, 36, of Guwahati,Assam, lost the love of his life, cricket,and his budding vocation as a cricketerto stress and peer pressure. The formerstudent of Cotton College started to ex-periment with pharma drugs while
representing the state at variousplaces. “We used to try drugs at teamparties just for fun,” he says.
Psychedelic lights, smoke, dry icefog and hundreds of young peopledancing to the sledgehammer thump-ing of techno music. Yet another all-night dance party? Not just. Check thesupplies in the “cool down” area. If youfind a strange assortment of vicks va-porubs, eye drops, surgical masks, lol-lipops, lots of water, juice, softdrinks—and no alcohol—it’s a rave.The parapharnelia is there to camou-flage the drug, enhance or control itseffects. But every city has its poison ofchoice: Delhi gets high on ecstasy,
SITUATIONALAWARENESS
Inexplicable and wild moodswings, along with restlessness,insomnia, hostile attitude,increased yelling or violence.
Worrying health symptoms—nausea, sweating, shaking,anxiety, blackouts to unknown infections and rashes.
Shirking work at school orhome—flunking classes, skippingwork, neglecting homework.
Taking risks, such as recklessdriving, getting into trouble fordisorderly conduct, lying andstealing money from friends,family and even strangers.
Fighting with friends, family,teachers and losing old friends.
Listless and giving up activitiesenjoyed earlier—hobbies, sport or socialising.
Constant need for alone-time—taking innumerable trips to the washroom, closing bedroom door and shutting out family and friends.
Carelessness about personalhygiene and appearance.
“WHITE-COLLAR ADDICTION IS COMING OUT OFTHE WOODWORK. MANYYOUNG PROFESSIONALSARE DRIVEN TO DRUGS BY PEER PRESSURE,BOREDOM, STRESS AND DISPOSABLE INCOMES.”
VIKRAM SHARMA/www.indiatodayimages.com
MUKUL WASNIK, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment
DR PRATIMA MURTHY, Chief, De-addiction Centre, NIMHANS
“WE ARE WORKINGON THE FIRST-EVERNATIONAL POLICY ONPREVENTION OFSUBSTANCE ABUSE IN THE COUNTRY.”
CHRISTINA ALBERTIN, Representative for South Asia, UNODC
“MAKING SYNTHETICDRUGS IS NO ROCKETSCIENCE. ONE CAN GOTO THE INTERNET,DOWNLOAD RECIPESAND PREPARE THEM IN THE KITCHEN.”
Tell-tale signs that your child might be on drugs
HEMANT CHAWLA/www.indiatodayimages.com
Mumbai swears by ice, ketamine isChennai’s poison, Lucknow raves onyaba and Calcutta dotes on meth. Thebottom-line is: they are all ampheta-mine-type stimulants—the secondmost commonly used drug globally,ahead of cocaine and opiates, says WDR
2010. Way back in 2004, when the MSJE
published the only national survey ondrug abuse, The Extent, Pattern andTrends of Drug Abuse in India, about0.2 per cent were ATS abusers out of 81,802 of treatment-seekers.“Synthetic drugs are particularly at-tractive to young people,” says DrArindam Mondal, consultant psychia-trist and a de-addiction specialist withApollo Gleneagles Hospitals, Kolkata,“They bring down social inhibitions,produce a sense of high energy, clever-ness and competence.”
New drugs demand new supplychains. One dewy February morningthis year saw Yogesh Deshmukh, thedeputy director general of NarcoticsControl Bureau, and his team check-ing every compartment of a train at theNew Delhi railway station. He had re-
ceived a tip-off about a Nigerian manin possession of heroin. His team lo-cated the man in one of the compart-ments. The search, however, revealedjust a few door-stoppers. He insistedthat he worked for a company thatmanufactured those. But whenDeshmukh broke them down, eachwas found to carry heroin.“Concealment is the trend as illicitdrugs become a part of everyday life,”he says. “We have busted several clan-destine labs manufacturing syntheticdrugs, quite a few Internet pharma-cies and courier companies, which arethe major modus operandi now.”Without strict laws to enforce selling ofdrugs by prescription, it’s hard tocrack down on the chemical high surg-ing across the country, he explains.
“There are about 70 million drug
users in the country,” goes the officialline. But that figure comes from thefirst and last national survey on drugabuse in India, carried out in 2000-01and published in 2004. The most com-mon drugs of abuse then were ganja,hashish, opium and heroin. ATS andprescription drugs were not largeenough to deserve scrutiny. Womenand children were kept out too. And a“drug addict” meant the man on thestreet—homeless, dispossessed, of the
criminal fringe. A profile distantenough for middle and affluent Indianot to be overtly worried about. Tenyears have gone by. In absence of na-tional studies, “70 million” is still be-ing touted as the magic number.Meantime, opium and heroin are on aslide. Synthetic drugs are muscling in.What’s more, they are being manufac-tured surreptitiously across the coun-try. The “new urban junkie” has got awhole new profile: young, educated,
working, upper and middle classes.The new affordable, discrete drugs ap-peal to them both recreationally andoccupationally. It’s a new landscapethat’s staring India in the face.Unfortunately, it might just take a longtime for a nation busy thumbing thepages of the past to make sense of anew reality calling for urgent atten-tion. with Arvind Chhabra, Kaushik Deka,
Kiran Tare, Mitali Patel, Gunjeet Sra, Lakshmi
Subramaniam, Sarbani Sen, Stephen David
46 INDIA TODAY ◆ AUGUST 30, 2010
Cover story DRUG ADDICTION
◗ More de-addiction centres.◗ Convergence between ministry ofsocial justice, health, women andchild development, HRD, sports andyouth affairs.◗ Consequences of drug abuse inschool curriculum.Awareness forteachers and parents.◗ Vigilance on social networkingsites. Periodic national surveys ondrug abuse and monitoringchemists and treatment-seekers.◗ Drug demand reduction and preventive policies.◗ New treatment modality: from detox and rehab to substitution therapy.
THE ACTION PLANFirst national policy on drugs on the anvil
Here, the first words infants pickup are bhang and charas.Children ask teachers if they
need a “bottle”. Temples offer liquoras prasad. Hawkers call out, “glassylo glassy”—the favoured intoxicatingbeverage—to passersby. And everyhousehold mourns a man, or men, lostto drugs. Maqboolpura, on the out-skirts of Amritsar, is India’s “village ofwidows and orphans”.
Jaswant Kaur, 45, who lost herhusband to drugs and now faces theuphill task of raising four daughtersand two sons, fits the average profile.Her neighbour, Naam Kaur, lost fivesons to drugs and the only survivingone—a sadai (insane) thanks todrugs—shouts abuses through theday. The daughter-in-law she hadmarried off to one son after another,as they died prematurely, is now thebreadwinner of the family. Next door,Raj Kaur, 30, is struggling with aperennially doped husband. Such sto-ries echo across the 13 lanes of the vil-lage. “Clearly, the Government is notinterested,” says Brij Bedi, industrial-ist and one of the few working to im-
prove their lot. The school he runs forthe children of addicts has impressedeven his wife, Kiran Bedi, India’s firstwoman IPS officer.
It’s a story the nation has wit-nessed before—far away fromMaqboolpura—way back in the ’70s.Led by Manipur, the Seven Sisters inthe North-east paid the price of prox-imity to the infamous drug hub—theGolden Triangle of Myanmar,Thailand and Laos. From heroin tosynthetic drugs, chasing to injecting,they are now in the grip of acute HIV.A whopping 28,000 have been diag-nosed HIV positive in Manipur alone.“Until recently, it was believed thatsevere drug abuse was mostly con-fined to the North-east,” says Dr AtulAmbekar, assistant professor at AIIMS,who did a seminal study of drug abusein Punjab with UNAIDS in 2008.
With the shadow of the GoldenCrescent in Pakistan, Afghanistan andIran looming, today Punjab,Chandigarh and Haryana are emerg-ing as the new hotspots. Ambekarfound over 20 per cent of 18-30 year-olds in Punjab—up to 50 per cent
in Amritsar—into injecting drugs, especially pharma. And it’s not justthe northwest. Uttar Pradesh,Maharashtra, Goa, Kerala, TamilNadu, Gujarat—show up a similarpattern. As Harjit Singh, secretary,Department of Social Security,Punjab, says: “It’s a drug hurricane.We are in danger of losing our young generation.”
by Arvind Chhabra and Kaushik Deka
It used to be the North-east. Now it’s the North-west.
RAJ KAUR WITH HER CHILDREN IN THE VILLAGE SCHOOLOFMAQBOOLPURA
ANIL DAYAL
Manipur toMAQBOOLPURAHEMANT CHAWLA/www.indiatodayimages.com
SURESH KUMAR, Deputy Director of National Centre for Drug Use Prevention, MSJE
“FRIENDS ARE THE KEY INFLUENCERS AMONGSTUDENTS IN HIGH-PRESSURE PROFESSIONALCOURSES.THEY MISUSE PHARMA DRUGS—SEDA-TIVES,ANXIOLYTICS AND SYNTHETIC OPIOIDS.”
