High Time to help “HIGH” Timers

The word drug has no single definition but I am pretty sure that the first thing that would come to your mind is a dark and dismal picture. This is the effect that this seemingly harmless word has assumed due to effects we have witnessed. By one definition this word ought to be a savior which says that “A drug is a substance which may have medicinal, intoxicating, performance enhancing or other effects when taken or put into a human body”.
The biggest surprise is that this definition has the word medicinal in it, but to clearly separate the meds from the word drugs we can find another word coined as “Pharmaceutical drugs”. So Why this grammatical separation and why this dark and dismal picture. The entire reason can be summed up in one word “Addiction”.
Drug addiction is one of the biggest growing dangers in our economy, India has at least 4 million drug addicts and these are not your day to day over-the-counter drugs that we are talking about. These drugs include Marijuana, LSD, Cocaine, tobacco and many others but all contributing to the “moral decay” equally. Though these are not over-the-counter drugs but these are just as easily available as normal medicines.
We are proud that we have the biggest proportion of youth in our population band but the other part of the research also shows that a major chunk of the youth is addicted to some or the other drug. Research has shown that an alarming number of buyers of drugs are middle class youths, the rich and spoilt kids or teenagers.
As our lifestyles have evolved more and more kids have free cash, which makes it easy for both the purchasers and the sellers to make business easy. Moreover these drugs are custom made to increase the addictive effects making you want to come back for more and more and hence keeping the cash flow constant.
These drugs give you the effect of being high or mentally not being conscious but more harm causing are the addictive effects that force you to have it regularly and make it a part of your schedule. These drugs are specifically manufactured to increase the addictive effects.
In a recent raid in Hyderabad the police 14 grams of cocaine, 10 packets of cube LSD, 10 small pills of micro LSD, five grams of MDMA and four LSD dots. The people who were consuming these drugs were not even educated to know the side effects that might occur after the consumption of these drugs and also what amounts are considered as an overdose. Moreover these kids were not even the regular lot like the rich and famous but average working class individuals, that just goes to show how easy it is to acquire these and how affordable the drugs have become which is alarming news.
Police and authorities claim that to increase profits, illegal drug makers are making cheap varieties of Drugs that are not at all safe for consumption and could lead to overdose and even death. Recently arrested batches of drugs like cocaine show that the composition of the drug was not even fit for consumption and even a small dose would be lethal.
These are only the physical or health side effects but the real reason behind the wide spread use of drugs is the image that is portrayed by the users, who make it like a lifestyle, the thrill that they derive by doing what is considered taboo, the secrecy about acquiring it. These things intrigue the innocent minds, people who are depressed and people who are vulnerable emotionally. Such people get sucked into usage of these drugs initially to get out of their depression but end becoming regular addicts.
Drug addicts usually avoid society and hang around with similar people, termed as “stoners” they are always in their own world and do not like to contribute to groups, if not under the effects of drugs they tend to be irritable and not focused in their work, estranged from family members, general collapse of human relations are standard events that several drug addicts face. To support their addiction some people do tend to turn anti-social and take up illegal activities that do provide a fast buck. Also they tend also rope in many other people just to support their own addictive tendencies. They slowly tend to become self-centered and do not wish to be in the conscious world but rather prefer to “Getting high” or “stoned”. The absence of reality in their world makes them non-productive and also remorseless, the need to cry for help is non cognizant as they are away from the world they once new, more than they distancing from people, people distance themselves from them and this includes family members, friends and near and dear ones.
The society too plays a supportive role towards addiction, rather than taking an understanding standpoint by family and friends, more often they isolate and neglect the user which further forces the addicts to depend more and more on the substance. The problem is that once you have become and addict the effort has to be taken from both the sides, in some cases the addict is ready to leave but not encouraged whereas in some cases the addicts never realise it and it becomes too late to turn back till it’s too late. Some addicts just keep quiet not to attract the negative comments that come from the society they live in. This should be avoided as acceptance is the first stage to improve or to move forward in resolving this problem.
Education about why these substances should be avoided should be imbibed at the adolescent stage and proper counselling should be taken for people who are affected at an earlier stage, after all though we may strive hard to completely get rid of the problem it is difficult as it has a component of personal will and perspective to it. Still if these words bring about a change in someone’s perspective or might help someone come out of his/her addiction or keep others away would be the biggest win of this blog.

Swapnil Kelaskar

MBA-ITBM(2013-15)