“This is an alarming new trend in drug addiction,” said Dr Jagdish Thappa, head of department at Jammu’s Government Psychiatry Hospital.
He added, “We’ve come across many cases of petrol addiction even in the Jammu city.”
He was speaking at a workshop on “Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking” organised by the Department of Lifelong Learning (formerly Centre for Adult Continuing Education and Extension), University of Jammu in the winter capital on Saturday.
Dheeraj Nagpal and Gaganjeet Singh, both senior intelligence officers with the Narcotics Control Bureau, informed the participants that India has become a hub of drugs as it is located in the midst of the Golden Triangle and Golden Quadrilateral. Jammu and Kashmir, they added, has become a transit route for drugs which are being transported from here to other destinations.]
Dr Thappa said that even though heroin, cannabis products often called charas, bhang, or ganja and Indian-produced pharmaceutical drugs are the most frequently abused drugs in India and also in Jammu and Kashmir, petrol addiction is becoming very common in Jammu province for past couple of years. He warned that petrol addiction is very dangerous as it hits the brain directly and the person indulging in it gets seizures (fits).
He said that recently a young boy, the only son of his parents, committed suicide sometime back in Jammu as he had become a chronic petrol addict. “Otherwise also, this addiction has quite dangerous consequences as the person may die within a year or so,” he said.
Dr Thappa said that besides petrol addiction, there has also been an increase in sedatives by drug users in Jammu.
Analgesics like Proxymon, thinner fluid which comes with typewriter whitener, boot polish and Corex are also increasingly being used by drug addicts, he said adding that as typewriter thinner fluid has hydrocarbons in it, the drug users pour it on the handkerchiefs and inhale it.
Apart from these, multiple addictions are also on increase in Jammu region. “It is a very, very common thing in Jammu,” he said adding that poppy husk or Bhukki is the most common substance abuse among low strata in the society in Jammu and Kashmir.
He said unless the person is motivated himself, it is difficult for the rehabilitation. “But once he or she wants to get rehabilitated, then a 100 per cent rehabilitation is possible which may include processes like detoxification, substitution therapy, counselling, rehabilitation, relapse prevention, harm prevention technique and family therapy.”
Speaking at the workshop, Dr Manu Arora, a well-known psychiatrist, said that drug abuse is quite prevalent in the society and has various social, cultural, biological, geographical, historical and economic aspects.
“The disintegration of the old joint family system, absence of parental love and care in modern families where both parents are working, decline of old religious and moral values etc lead to a rise in the number of drug addicts who take drugs to escape hard realities of life,” he said adding drug use, misuse or abuse is also primarily due to the nature of the drug abused, the personality of the individual and the addict’s immediate environment.
He said that the introduction of synthetic drugs and intravenous drug use leading to HIV/AIDS has added a new dimension to the problem, especially in the Northeast.
The intravenous injections of analgesics like dextropropoxphene etcetera are also reported from many states, as it is easily available at 1/10th the cost of heroin. The codeine-based cough syrups continue to be diverted from the domestic market for abuse, Dr Arora said.
Pallavi Singh, senior counsellor and in-charge Mashwara, the only rehabilitation centre working in Jammu region, said that drug abuse has led to a detrimental impact on the society.
Adolescent drug abuse, she said, is one of the major areas of concern in adolescent and young people’s behaviour. It is estimated that, in India, by the time most boys reach the ninth grade, about 50 per cent of them have tried at least one of the gateway drugs, she added.
According to the officials, trafficking in cannabis remains widespread throughout India and in 2008, the authorities seized 103 tonnes cannabis herb and 4.1 tonnes cannabis resin.
With a turnover of around $500 billion, it is the third largest business in the world, next to petroleum and arms trade. About 190 million people all over the world consume one drug or the other.