What would you do if a young woman you cared about were to become a drug addict, and then turned to prostitution to support her drug habit? Or a promising, friendly young man were to be found in the gutter with needle marks on his arms?
Do you know there are states in India where up to twelve percent of the youth are addicted to drugs?
Such tragic stories are true—and more frequent than we may think.
This month’s cover story—as well as next month’s—is dedicated to a painful scourge affecting many of our youth: Substance abuse. It is not limited to young people, of course. But the group that is most successfully targeted by drug peddlers are our young people. Drug barons and distributors know that, once a boy or girl is addicted, they have them hooked for life; that the addict will do almost anything to “get high”—cheat, lie, steal, rob or even prostitute themselves.
What is substance addiction? Why are so many young people getting addicted? What do they take? What do these substances do to the taker’s body and brain?
I remember a meeting with former addicts. One of them, a young man, told us: “To try drugs the first time, you don’t need money. There are people who will give it to you free. They know that once we get hooked, we will run to them for more, ready to pay them anything they ask.”
Drugs follow where the money is. Hence, there is greater danger of exposure to drugs in or near our posh schools and colleges than in our slums and poorer neighbourhoods.
Fr Ajoy Fernandes SDB, who wrote a book about addiction among the young, has agreed to write two cover stories for us. The first part presents the fact of addiction and how substances affect the brain and behaviour. In the next issue, he will deal with what’s to be done: How to prevent addiction, and how to help those already addicted.
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