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Jammu grapples with menace of drug abuse by youth

Vijay Gupta. Dated: 3/21/2018 12:12:52 PM

Vijay Gupta
Jammu, Mar 20
Like other cities in the country, Jammu, too, is grappling with the menace of ever-increasing drug use among the youth.
The Government Psychiatric Diseases Hospital, near Government Medical College Hospital (GMCH), Jammu, which has a drug de-addiction centre, is frequently registering cases of youngsters, mostly school/college dropouts, taking drugs.
There has been an increase in the cases related to drug addiction mostly among school/college-going students, who are either dropouts or have failed. It is undoubtedly a disturbing development.
In fact, there are many reasons for the incidence of substance usage among the youth. Lack of quality relationship between parents and their wards is one of them. As a result, the parents are completely unaware of the activities of their wards. This communication gap is a contributory factor which eventually paves the way for youngsters to opt for drugs consumption to ease their frustration/tension.
These school/college-going children are addicted to various substances like tobacco, cannabis, etc. Though various awareness programmes have been organised, besides providing de-addiction counselling and student psychological counselling to these drug addicts, but still there is an urgent need for mass awareness on the grass-roots level regarding ill-effects of drugs intake among the youth.
The study further claimed that the use of tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and inhalants is present in the state. Availability of substances in and around home or school, academic failures, parental attitudes favourable to substance use and peer substance use were some of the reasons that encouraged drug abuse among children.