Srinagar: Over 36,000 women from Jammu and Kashmir – young and middle-aged are addicted to cannabis, as many as 8,000 women take sedative drugs, official data has revealed.
According to the Government of India, there are nearly 10 lakh drug addicts in Jammu and Kashmir. This is an unprecedented level of drug addiction on a land considered the home of saints and pious.
Nearly 1.50 lakh male population are addicted to cannabis only. A large number of people have become addicted to Heroin, Opium, Cocaine, Crack, Marijuana, Inhalants, and prescription drugs.
“The idea of the rising number of drug peddlers and drug addicts present in Kashmir Valley can be gauged from the fact that every day, police on average arrest 3 to 4 drug peddlers and addicts,” said one of the renowned doctors from Kashmir, wishing not be named. He suggested that instead of slapping Public Safety Act on the peddlers and addicts, there is a need to enact strict laws and even capital punishment is an option.
President, the Doctors Association Kashmir Dr Nisar-ul-Hasan said unseen forces are behind this drug trafficking in Kashmir. “If you make it available, youth have a tendency for these things. So they go into it once they take it, they become addicted for life. But who are these people who are behind drug peddling, getting these drugs to Kashmir? These unseen forces are peddling and promoting this wicked trade in Kashmir,” said Dr Nisar.
A recent study by the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (IMHANS), Srinagar, has revealed that J&K has surpassed Punjab in drug abuse cases.
Dr Asif who is posted in one of the hospitals in Srinagar agreed that stringent laws will certainly put brakes on the drug menace. “Laws are always for the welfare of the citizens but in a society bereft of any morality, laws can be misused,” he cautioned.
He said it is good that under the government’s drug deaddiction policy, drug addicts are treated and counseled, but what about the drug peddlers? Who will take care of them?, he questioned.
Another doctor wishing anonymity said that a strict mechanism should be devised to handle drug peddlers. [KNT]
