Battling drug abuse in J&K

• A Srinagar-based woman writes to the police to book her son under the Public Safety Act.
• Another mother asks the administration to direct the police to take her son to a rehabilitation centre.
• A village in north Kashmir thanks the police for its actions but seeks action against the drug ‘kingpin’.

Desperation is writ large in the letters and representations to the authorities in Kashmir, indicating the scale of the drug addiction menace in the Valley. As families struggle to cope, the crime rate has gone up and the healthcare setup is reeling under the impact of the ever-increasing number of addicts seeking medical assistance. Even women and children have fallen prey to drug abuse.

• Also read: From Pakistan, via Jammu

Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital, which is the main treatment centre for drug addiction in the Valley, receives patients from across Jammu and Kashmir. The patient registration figures present a grim picture. As many as 23,403 patients visited the OPD from April 2021 to March 2022. The number almost doubled to 41,110 the following year, while 56,844 patients got themselves registered from April 2023 to March 2024.

According to Dr Fazle Roub, a Srinagar-based specialist who helps individuals overcome addiction and mental health challenges, the drug problem is “a bigger and severe one in Kashmir”. The situation was worse until last year, with patients as young as nine coming for treatment, he says.

A study conducted in 2022 by the Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences about the prevalence of substance use disorders in 10 districts of Kashmir found that the Valley had a sizeable population of 67,468 substance-dependent individuals. It also estimated the number of injecting drug users (IDUs) at 32,097. “Till 2023, we were seeing 20 to 30 first-time visitors per day at the SMHS Hospital. It’s a relief that the numbers have come down a little,” says Dr Roub. The addiction treatment facilities started by the government have helped patients in rural areas get treatment in their own districts, he adds.

The Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment recently submitted its report to Parliament on drug abuse among young persons in the UT in 2023. It stated that there were nearly 1,68,700 drug users in the age group of 10 to 17 years and 11.8 lakh drug users in the age group of 18 to 75 years. Opioids were the most commonly abused substance, it stated.

“Though heroin tops the list, patients have been found to be shifting to pharmaceutical opioids like Tramadol and Tapentadol, and even painkillers like Pregabalin,” says Dr Roub, adding that another worrying trend is the huge number of Hepatitis C cases among IDUs.

“The number is almost 70-80 per cent, which is dangerous,” he says. “There is hardly an injection user who doesn’t have Hepatitis C. Most people are not aware of the risk that sharing needles puts them at,” he says.

According to de-addiction specialist Dr Majid Shafi, the drug menace started some 10 years back, but the cases have increased manifold in the past five years.

Tales of pain, despair

A 21-year-old Srinagar-based patient at the SMHS Hospital had been taking drugs for the past eight years. He is presently undergoing opioid substitution therapy (OST) at the hospital. “I started with a joint in 2016, and then switched over to heroin. Initially, it was half a gram per day, which later increased to 2.5 gm,” he shares. “When I didn’t have the money to buy drugs, I stole gold coins from home,” he says, adding that he has spent nearly Rs 5 lakh on drugs. His only hope, he says, is the Naltrexone implant (opiate blocker), which will help prevent a narcotic addiction relapse.

Also getting the OST treatment at the hospital is his 28-year-old roommate, who belongs to an affluent family in Doda district. He started trying drugs in 2016 to have a ‘euphoric’ moment.

“It was out of curiosity that I started. I wanted to see how it felt, and it felt very good when I tried it first. But soon things changed for the worse and my life turned upside down. I have lost so much money. Initially, it was heroin, then I switched to pharmaceutical opioids. There came a time when in a day, I would be taking 20 to 25 tablets,” he says. “I started suffering from seizures. When my parents came to know of my condition, they tried to help, but the damage had already been done. It was the worst phase of my life.”

He doesn’t have a count of how much he has spent on drugs. “So far, I have spent around Rs 20 lakh on drugs and there have been losses to the business,” he says.

“It is too much for us. We are praying for him to come out of this permanently,” says his mother, adding that the family is waiting to see him make a complete recovery.

“Substance use is a bio-psycho social problem. Wherever mental health issues are rising, so are cases of drug abuse. Most users say they start under peer pressure and continue it,” says Dr Roub, adding that a multi-pronged strategy is required to tackle the challenge.

Campaign against drugs

The authorities concerned are actively working to check the menace. For instance, Uri town in the border district of Baramulla was considered a major hotspot for drugs. SSP Amod Ashok Nagpure, who was recently shifted to Udhampur, had been going all out against the drug network. In January last year, he started the campaign to make Baramulla drug-free.

“When we started the campaign, we got feedback from the public that a number of youngsters were falling prey to drug abuse and there had been an increase in the incidents of crime,” he says. “We took up the challenge to make this district, which shares its border with Pakistan, drug-free,” adds Nagpure. The police started identifying the agents who were in touch with the handlers operating in the territory.

“Our major concern was the Uri subdivision. There we took coercive and legal action against narcotics smugglers. We went after their properties and booked them under the stringent PITNDPS (Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act. We seized a huge quantity of drugs in Uri and identified pockets which were chronic hotspots,” he says, adding that “Uri is not a consumer area. It is a supply belt because the quantity of drugs that came from across the border used to be huge”.

“Till August this year, 651 drug peddlers have been arrested. Of these, 100 were big fish,” he says. “We initiated action against them and booked them under the PITNDPS Act. We went after 120 persons, and that sent a strong message,” he says. “In 20 cases, properties of drug peddlers were attached. Most of them were from Uri subdivision.”

Compared to last year, there has been a decline of almost 50 per cent in the registration of drug cases. “We have seen a steep decline of around 78 per cent in drug smuggling cases,” he says, adding that of the big consignments seized in the UT, not one was traced to Uri.

As the new government takes charge in the UT, the issue of drug menace presents a huge challenge. In its election manifesto, the National Conference claimed it stood firm in its commitment to make Jammu and Kashmir drug-free.

Among the measures listed in the strategy included prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and setting up of addiction treatment facilities and drug de-addiction as well as rehabilitation centres across the UT.

Jammu and Kashmir’s Social Welfare Minister Sakeena Masood has asked officers to initiate a tough fight against the menace. The resolve of the newly elected government will be on test.