Srinagar, 24 January, KDC: Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Sunday warned society of alarming rise in drug and alcohol abuse especially among youth appealing parents, social organizations, teachers and religious leaders to rise against the menace.
President DAK, Dr Suhail Naik said over the years Kashmir has witnessed a considerable rise in drug abuse cases as youth are taking drugs due to its easy availability, accessibility and affordability due to its huge local production.
“We as society, parents, social organisations, teachers and religious clerks should rise against the same and help in educating youth about the ill effects of the drug addiction,” he said.
In a statement issued to media, DAK said J&K has witnessed a steep rise in substance abuse cases over the past two decades saying that the drugs go to places where there is even no public transport.
Naik said that said both alcohol and drugs are deleterious for both mental and physical health and become long term social evil.
“When people lose their mental balance, they don’t difference between right and wrong. There is a huge loss to family monetarily and socially,” he said.
General Secretary DAK, Dr Owais H Dar said that both drugs and alcohol makes a person liable to several kinds of infections and diseases like HIV Hepatitis B and C, infective endocarditis through syringes in IV drug abusers. Steep rise of drug abuse may be one of the contributing factors of surge in sudden deaths among youth of valley due to their maximum consumption.
“Diseases like fatty liver, cirrhosis, cardiac ailments, encephalopathy, accidents, blood borne ugly infections are very common among alcohol users,” he said.
DAK said that a lot of road accidents happen due to alcohol or drug abuse by drivers seeking for concrete measures a multipronged strategy for the remedial measures.
The doctors body said that traffic police and other departments deputed on roads and highways should be equipped with instruments to check alcohol abuse by driver’s.
The spokesperson of DAK said that people who are involved in trade of drugs make huge money out of it and they have destroyed almost one generation of youth.
“It is time to rise against this menace and support drug addicts and their families. Let us make it clear to them that drug addiction is chronic disease and is treatable. We request society to bring victim’s to drug deaddiction centres for treatment,” it said.
The doctors body said that few years before, the then State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) had come up with a study in which they had studied 100 drug abusers in twin drug de-addiction centre in Srinagar.
The study had revealed that majority of them had been using cannabis. Yesterday Police had caught few culprits with Heroine worth rupees 6 Crores, this can be only tip of iceberg.
DAK said that the disastrous consequences of drug consumption proves in latter stages of life especially when an individual develops family which is dependent on him, economically, emotionally and socially.
Few years back, the government came up with a drug deaddiction policy but it is still not effective in terms of work that should be done to reach out by way of treatment to abusers.
DAK said that the Directorate of Health Services Kashmir (DHSK) should post psychiatrists and Clinical Psychologists in all rural hospitals and start drug de-addiction day clinics across the Division. (KDC)
