New IndPress

Bangalore, Aug 25: “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you,” said F Scott Fitzgerald.

Drug use and abuse is rampant today. According to a national survey, 51-76 per cent of drug users are from rural areas among whom, 16-49 per cent are illiterate.

Many youths today start on drugs for a number of reasons, from curiosity and recreation to the need to cope with stress. Some of the most common reasons being peer pressure and the varied emotions the youngsters experience while consuming drugs.

A college student in Bangalore says, “It is easy to get marijuana and heroin in the city, but more expensive “party” drugs such as acid, ecstasy and cocaine are usually ordered from dealers in Goa, Manali and Mumbai.”

Given that the drug addicts come from all walks of society, interventions need to be localised. Apart from government strategies for the reduction of demand and supply of drugs prevention intervention targeted at specific sub groups are also needed.

Another vulnerable group in Bangalore that is rapidly growing, is the middle class with new found purchasing power.

Youngsters have money and no place to spend it. There are very few places where these people can go for entertainment or to socialise. Many people have nowhere to go after midnight and tend to get together at friends’ homes and “smoke grass”.

At the lower end of the spectrum, of those vulnerable are a rising number of educated unemployed graduates who get easy access to cheap drugs like sniffing whitener fluid or sometimes even petrol to get “cheap trips”.

With drugs like marijuana costing just rupees 80 to 100 for a small packet of 100 gms in Bangalore, it very affordable for the youngsters in the city to indulge in them.

This ever rising social problem should become part of a larger public discourse rather than a problem to be dealt with after it reaches a chronic stage.