Drug addiction has assumed alarming proportions in Punjab over the past few years. Thousands of young and old are in its grip, reports Krishna Kumar
Sukhwinder’s is a despairingly familiar story in drug–plagued Punjab. The vibrant Punjab that had ushered in the Green Revolution is today living in a dazed stupor, as 67 per cent of the rural households in the state have at least one drug addict, a survey conducted by the Department of Social Security Development of Women and Children reveals.

Once an affluent village in Amritsar district, Maqboolpura has come to be known as a “Widow village”, where almost every home has lost some of its male members to the menace of drugs. Drug addiction has become a stigma that belies claims of prosperity in the state.

The vibrancy of Punjab is virtually a myth, as no cereals are being sold here by the youth, especially drug addicts (Amali is the local term used for addicts), to earn their livelihood. Instead, many sell their blood to procure the daily dose of deadly drugs, and even beg on the streets to satisfy their addiction.

Sukhwinder was once caught by the in charge of a blood bank in his district when he went there to sell his blood. His skinny frame, death–like pallor, deep sunken eyes, and particularly the multiple injection marks on his arms, gave him in, telling the tale of his notorious past. “It is no longer a question of a village getting ruined. The whole state is in the stranglehold of this death trap,” informs Virsa Singh Valtoha, ruling party MLA from the Valtoha constituency that spreads across 96 km along the India–Pakistan border. “It is complete disaster all the way as the number of addicts keeps on increasing”, he rues.

Younger victims
Not only are more and more people getting hooked to drugs, unfortunately, they are falling prey to this lethal habit at a much younger age. Youths gets lured into the world of drugs by tasting bhuki, which grows like a wild grass and is freely available in the fields. Or they take to gutka or tobacco pouches.

“The problem has assumed epidemic proportions in the rural areas where unemployment is rampant,” says a patron of Punarjyot, an NGO working for the welfare of youth in Punjab. “A whole generation is as good as destroyed. Not a single village is without scores of drug addicts.”

Once hooked, these young men graduate to cough syrups like Phansydril and Corex, Proxyvon, Dormant 10, Diszepham tablets. From this stage they, then, move on to a more lethal menu of opium, charas, ganja, mandrax, smack, heroin, lizards’ tails and many more items like application of shoe polish in hair while sitting in the sun, smelling petrol and spreading Iodex on bread, to get that heady feeling. “Peer influence, thrill–seeking and curiosity about drugs were found to be the main factors that make youth take to drugs,” observes an official of Spring Dale Senior School, Amritsar. With the consumption of intoxicants having become so widespread, most boys treat an introduction to them as some kind of a coming–of–age ceremony.

The sordid story of drug addiction begins out of a curious adventure and soon turns into a nightmare. “I have seen my colleague’s son selling off his land and wife’s jewellery to procure his daily dose,” says Surinderpal Singh, an English teacher at a Government School in Narli. “It is really frightening as he sometimes asks his mother to shoot him in order to save him from this vicious circle.”

The spread of AIDS, too, is linked to the malady due to the use of injectible intoxicants. The death rate and the number of HIV positive cases have increased by 60 per cent due to the rampant use of intoxicants. As per reports, within just one year, hundreds of youths have lost their lives to drugs.

Deadly drug stores
The scenario is becoming grim rapidly, say medical experts and social workers, due to the mushrooming of illegal chemists’ shops, which are adding fuel to the fire that is destroying Punjab. Even a small village with a population of about 2,000 has at least 10 to 12 chemist shops, without any physician or general practitioner nearby.

“Many chemists are surviving on these addicts as they provide drugs to them without a prescription. Injectible intoxicants, tablets and syrups are easily available,” says Dr Deepak Sahdev, of EMC Super Specialty Hospital, Amritsar. “Even many of the so–called de–addiction centres are actually proving to be addiction centres. These are, in fact, supplying drugs to the inmates.”

The number of such shops, mostly selling drugs, and de–addiction centres, being run to fleece the patients, have increased at an incredible rate in the state. “A misconception about de–addiction is being spread in Punjab with some centres promising de–addiction treatment with laser therapy,” says Dr Debasish Basu, Professor, Drug De–addiction Centre at PGIMER (Postgraduate Institute of Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education & Research), Chandigarh. “Most of the privately run de–addiction centres lack basic facilities and are there just to mint money.”

Media reports have often revealed inhuman treatment being meted out to drug addicts at private de–addiction centres where they are even chained and beaten up mercilessly on the pretext of being disciplined. In Mohali, workers of a local de–addiction centre recently dumped a youth at the gate of his house after he developed medical complications. The youth died later.

The Punjab Government has, of late, started conducting raids on illegal de–addiction centres in the state.

The increase in the number of patients at the drug de–addiction centre in the PGI is alarming. The institute gets 1,000 patients at walk–in clinics every year, while 500 patients are registered in the OPD. Nearly 250 addicts are being treated as in–patients.