Punjab's drug problem: Time for action instead of blame game?

by Monika  Chandigarh: Driving down the bumpy road to the village Maqboolpura on the outskirts of Amritsar, you find the streets deserted even before the sun goes down, as many families try to cope up with the darkness of death that has descended on their households. Every family here mourns a death, every child knows what losing kin means. Hooked to disaster Christened the “locality of widows”, its inhabitants oscillate between euphoria due to drugs, and despair due to death in the family. Talk to the residents of Maqboolpura, and you realise that infants recite words such as “bhang” and “charas”, even before they learn the alphabet. Among the “victims” of drug addiction is a 25-year-old man who looks well older than his age. He knows nothing about India’s boxing pin-up boy Vijender Singh, the allegations against him of using heroin on several occasions; and the renewed attention of the Government and the media on drugs. He survives from injection to injection. His blank hollow eyes rimmed by deep dark circles gazed out of his scrawny face, as he made vague attempts to focus his attention. [caption id=“attachment_689931” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The use of narcotics has spread fast throughout Punjab. AFP[/caption] The eyes remained expressionless, yet narrated a tale of anguish through their unresponsiveness. With shifting eyes, he made no attempt to express any grief over his elder brothers’ deaths. All he said in an impassive voice was that his brothers never got married. He too is single. Their mother, a bag of bones, is perhaps too frail to carry the weight of death on her feeble shoulders. All this 25-year-old is worried about is the next dose; and his cooperation is guided by his previous experiences with the media. He knows wallets will open as soon as he talks about his drug habit. He minced no words in admitting that wriggling in pain is a habit, and hallucinations are routine. His bony hands trembled as he showed the exposed parts of his body bruised by the needles used to administer drugs. His story is hardly uncommon, and his profile is hardly any different from others in the village. His neighbour was a widow before she turned 45. One look at the family is enough to tell you that she has little time to sit and brood. She has four daughters and two sons to bring up. Estimates suggest some 200 families like theirs in the village are affected by the menace that has its roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan. For the outer world, these victims have no faces. Names don’t matter to the outsiders. The villagers are just sufferers, remembered during interviews, only to be forgotten after the research is over. Its inhabitants have over the years turned into “guinea pigs” for research by the media and so many others, interested in studying the problem, rather than the cure. Politicians are hardly any different in their approach. Land of drugs For years, the attention of the government and the media remained confined to Maqboolpura, until the problem attained the much larger proportions in the rest of Punjab as well. Presently no one really has an idea about the extent of the problem in the state. During one of his visits to Punjab, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi created a flutter by saying seven out of 10 youngsters were drug addicts in Punjab — an assertion vehemently refuted by the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine and it was quick to react. “Rahul’s statement is totally illogical, erroneous, politically motivated and a deliberate conspiracy to tarnish the image of Punjabi youth and an onslaught on their dignity…He should have rather cross-check the factual position from Centre before issuing such provocative and half-baked statements,” said Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. [caption id=“attachment_689935” align=“alignright” width=“380”] Was Rahul’s statement on Punjab’s drug problem accurate? AP[/caption] But, in its anxiety to launch operation “all-is-well”, the state government apparently overlooked its own document, included as part of the “state disaster management plan”. The plan for 2010-11 stated, “Punjab’s grievous drug problem was revealed recently in a report by Guru Nanak University in Punjab’s largest city, Amritsar, which declared that some 73.5 per cent of the state’s youth between 16 and 35 years were confirmed drug addicts”. The plan listed drug addiction under the “hazard” category, and said the threat due to it was “grievous”. The problem’s mind-boggling extent was admitted by the government before the High Court as well. In an affidavit submitted before the Punjab and Haryana High Court around three years ago, the Punjab government said 67 per cent of the rural households in state had at least one drug addict. “Households survey conducted by International Classification of Diseases of the UN indicates that there is at least one drug addict in the 65 per cent of families in Majha (Amritsar area) and Doaba (Jalandhar area); and 64 per cent of families in Malwa (Bathinda area). Three out of 10 girls have abused one or the other drug. Nearly 66 per cent of school students take gutka or tobacco; and about seven out of 10 college students abuse one or the other drug,” it stated. The degree of the problem can also be estimated from the fact that at least 5,000 drug addicts undergo treatment every year at 51 rehabilitation centres across the state. Just over five years ago, their number in each centre was anywhere between 80 and 85. It has now gone up to 190 in some of the centres. Another study by Chandigarh-based Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research discovered an eight-fold increase in patients approaching the institute for treatment. The study was carried to evaluate blueprint of abuse in northern India over three decades from September 1978 to December 2008. Released recently, the study said the number of people registered for de-addiction registered an increase from 555 in the first decade from 1979 to 1988 to 4,168 in the third decade from 1999 to 2008. Blame game For the state government, diagnosing the role of others in this problem is more important than curing it. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal blames the Congress-led UPA Government for allowing drug trafficking across international and state borders adjoining Punjab. Describing drug addiction as an national problem caused by widespread unemployment, Badal insists it can only be combated with the Centre’s intervention. “Poppy husk is grown in Rajasthan and trafficked to neighbouring Punjab,” he said to substantiate his argument on inter-state drug trafficking. [caption id=“attachment_689937” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Does Badal have a lot to answer for? Image courtesy: ibnlive[/caption] His deputy, Sukhbir Badal, holds the charge for the Home Ministry which is responsible for failing to check increasing trans-border smuggling. The BSF, which works under the Union Home Ministry, is responsible for the increasing trans-border smuggling, he said. Chief Parliamentary Secretary for Health Navjot Kaur Sidhu, who only recently asserted that 67 to 70 percent people in Punjab were drug addicts, said, “If they are taking drugs, we will provide them with sterlised needles to save them from HIV or Hepatitis. We will also provide them medicines that are alternative to the drugs; and then those medicines will also be available with the Medical Officers.” She added that efforts will also be made to educate the addicts to take alternative medicines free of cost, “instead of drugs.” Boxer Vijender Singh’s alleged bout with drugs has once again brought the problem to the centre stage. It now requires to be seen whether the government is hooked to the idea of curing the malady with the desperate frenzy of a drug addict.