NAWAN SHEHAR: A seminar on Drug Abuse? organized by the District Chemists? Association here at Shivalik Public School Sunday, turned out to be one with a difference.As if to prick the conscience of the unscrupulous among the nearly 250 chemists present on the occasion, at the end of the seminar, two addicts dared to come on the stage and appealed to them not to sell drugs and make the lives of other youth a living hell. With folded hands, I appeal to you not to sell drugs merely to make some quick bucks. Their easy availability is one of the reasons that youths like me are falling into their trap,? said Jugal Preet (name changed). He also bemoaned the lack of guidance to the youth in the matter.

Echoing somewhat similar views, Rakesh (name changed), 24, with a diploma in Multipurpose Health Workers? course, went a step further and said: ?Please stop selling drugs without the valid prescription to addicts like me. God will certainly bless you.? Earlier, talking to HT, Parmod (name changed) told that he took to the path of drugs with taking of apparently harmless mouthfreshners that are easily available in every nook and corner of the state. ?However, I soon found myself taking all kinds of drugs including tablets and injectibles like norphine and avil,? he revealed. ?Their availability and money to purchase them was never a problem,? he said. ?Paise da jugar tan ho hi janda hai,? he told.

Another addict hooked on to poppy husk, a 26-year youth from Rasoolpur, only son of his parents, too maintained that easy availability coupled with abundance of money as in his case (his entire family is settled in Canada, he revealed), were the main factors that led him to the path of self-ruination. In fact, the seminar organizers had called all the 31 drug addicts currently undergoing 15-day special de-addiction camp at Civil Hospital, Sujjon, near Banga. Federation of Nawanshahr district NGOs, Upkar Coordination Society, is organizing the camp in association with the district administration. Corroborating the addicts? views, Dr Pavittar Singh, a psychologist and a noted social worker of the area who is engaged providing counseling to the addicts at the camp, said that besides easy money and availability of drugs in the state, lack of job avenues and ?NRI factor? were the other reasons for the increasing menace of drugs in Punjab.

?These NRIs often party their village youth to endless rounds of wine during their stay in the country and from wine to drugs, the route is quite short,? he told HT. He revealed that success rate in the de-addiction was not an encouraging one. ?Sadly, internationally it is not more than 33 per cent,? he added. This USA-returned psychologist and social worker also listed denials by the family members of the addicts in the initial stages that their wards were into the drugs as another reason for the spread of menace in Punjab. ?At de-addiction center at Dhahan Kaleran, I have observed that the families continue to deny the involvement of their sons in this social evil. In this manner they lose the chance of getting their wards treated with the simple and cheap first line-of-treatment available for the menace,? he observed.

Meanwhile, presiding over the seminar local MLA and Parliamentary Secretary Parkash Singh appealed to the chemists to recognize their responsibility towards the society and desist from selling ?drugs?. DC Krishan Kumar too called upon them to disassociate themselves from the few black sheep amongst them. ?Eighty per cent of the problem will be solved the day you resolve not to sell habit-forming drugs to the youth,? he said. Kumar also asked the youth esp. in the rural areas to unite together to fight this social evil. ?No one can sell drugs and narcotics in your area if you do not allow them,? he said while exhorting them to make Nawanshahr, a district credited with giving birth to martyrs like Bhagat Singh, a drug-free district in the state. The seminar ended with the chemists taking a pledge not to sell any habit-forming drugs without the valid prescription of a qualified doctor. Activists of Pragati Kala Kendra, Landhran presented the play ?Mitti Rudan Kare? highlighting the rising menace of drug abuse in the state