SRINAGAR: Amid liberal projections about the number of drug addicts in Kashmir, the state health authorities will soon collaborate with a UN team for a comprehensive census of persons afflicted with the ‘disease’ of drug abuse.
“There is practically no authentic data. Since the problem is now growing to the menacing levels we have collaborated with the government medical college to prepare a reliable and comprehensive data about the drug abusers and victims of the menace. Even a UN agency has also expressed interest in preparing the data,” says a prominent psychiatrist Dr Arshad Dada.
Dr Arshad, who is Associate Professor at the government Psychiatry Hospital, says, “The problem is growing bigger than one can imagine.”
Speaking during a TV debate on Kashir Channel Monday night, Dr Arshad said, “Kashmir is now turning into a small metro where old cultural mores are giving way to individualism. Parents don’t care about the personal life of their children , they are worried about their children’s marks card.”
Meanwhile, Police is continuing with its much watched campaign against drug addiction. Over ten thousand young and old men, who were indulging in drug or substance abuse, have been registered the Drug De-addiction Center at Police Control Room. “Most of them have shunned drugs and they been rehabilitated,” says Tahir Saleem, top Police officials commanding the old Srinagar areas, where the drug and substance abuse has been recorded highest in the whole of Srinagar. “Our focus is more on awareness rather than punitive actions. We believe it’s not as much a problem of policing as it is of social orientation,” Tahir said in the TV debate.
Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah past week had underlined the need of identifying the scale and magnitude of the problem for coordinated response for its eradication.
We should act promptly and effectively to nip the evil in bud, Omar told a high level officers at a meeting he chaired here last Tuesday in which a team from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes ?UNODC made PowerPoint presentation on the subject.
The projections by the state authorities were so alarming that the UNODC team offered its help to the State in three important aspects of Normative Work, Technical Assistance and Research Policy Analysis to build a complete data on the issue and take appropriate measures to curb the menace effectively.
According to Police, in the Rehabilitation and Treatment Centers more than five thousand drug addicts have been treated.
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