| Drug addiction no more limited to few districts of JK, has assumed alarming proportions | | Jammu, Samba districts worst affected in Jammu division | | Jehangir Rashid
Early Times Report
srinagar, Nov 27: The problem of drug addiction is no more limited to few districts of the state and the same has spread its tentacles across the length and breadth of Jammu & Kashmir right from Lakhanpur to Uri.
While Samba and Jammu districts have turned out to be most affected districts in the Jammu division the position with regard to drug addiction in the Kashmir valley is also very disturbing with most of the districts painting a dismal picture in this regard.
A national survey being led by National Drug De-Addiction Center, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi in collaboration with Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Medical College and Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (IMHANS) Kashmir has provided deeper insights into problem of substance use disorders.
"From the preliminary data (as communicated by SKIMS Medical College) during the course of the Household Survey it was found that the most affected districts are Samba and Jammu, in the Jammu division. It was also found that in Jammu, apart from the use of alcohol and cannabis, sedative pharmacological agents like buprenorphine, Tramadol, Alprax, were also used. A few cases of intravenous use of heroin, brown sugar were also present," reads the survey.
The survey said that in Respondent Dependent Sampling Survey (RDSS) the sample districts Anantnag and Srinagar, show higher use of heroin and medicinal opiods, both injectables and orals, in addition to benzodiazepines, inhalants and other newer psychoactive substances.
The survey has been mentioned in the draft policy document for drug de-addiction for the state. The draft is in the public domain and it is expected that the policy would be implemented since the Chief Secretary, B V R Subrahmanyam and Principal Secretary, Health & Medical Education (H&ME) Atal Duloo wanted the same and that too at the earliest.
"According to the database of Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar and Associated Hospitals, the number of patients with substance use visiting Out Patient Department (OPD) in 2016-17 was 6157 and between January 2017 and December 2017 it was 6550," reads the survey report.
The survey report says that the community centre, Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital the number of patients with drug dependence admitted in the year 2016-17 was 535 and in 2017-18 it was 710. The number of admitted patients from Srinagar were 185 followed by Budgam (43 patients), Baramulla (40 patients) Anantnag (39 patients), Kupwara (25 patients), Pulwama (24 patients), Shopian (15 patients), Bandipora (14 patients), Kulgam (11 patients) and Ganderbal (11) patients. |
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