Indians are increasingly hitting the bottle at a young age or shooting narcotics up their nostrils and blood vessels,, replacing the puffs of cigarette smoke that gave them a high about a decade ago.
Nationwide data from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey-2 show an alarming trend of young Indians switching from tobacco to alcohol and psychotropic substances since 2009-2010.
Tobacco abuse among teenagers and young adults has dropped by a third among people aged 15 to 24 and halved in the age group of 15 to 17 years, according to the survey. But the number of people abusing alcohol and drug is increasing, with children as young as 12 seeking a liquor or heroin fix.
According to the UN, India has 10 million of the world’s estimated 247 million drug abusers. There is no latest national-level data to bring out the magnitude of the problem, but doctors are registering a considerable rise in number of drug abusers.
“There is a risk of a child starting with inhalants and later moving to harder forms such as injectable drugs that can have much serious implication on their health,” Dr Nimesh G Desai.
“In clinical practice, there has been over a five-fold increase in adolescents coming for problems related to substance use in under a decade,” said
Dr Samir Parikh, the director of mental health and behavioural sciences at Fortis hospitals.
According to New Delhi-based de-addiction expert Keshav Palita, five to 10 new adolescent patients crop up each day and “more than half of them
were introduced to drug” when they’re below 15. “Cannabis, alcohol, cocaine, mephedrone and other pharmaceutical and party drugs are the most common among children,” he said during a session on “de-glamourisation of drugs in society” last year.
Besides, easy access to substances such as whiteners, nail polish removers, paint thinners, petrol, and shoe polish are quick and cheap fixes for children – inhaled to get an instant high.
