Shopian: Inside a well-manicured park in Bonabazar area of south Kashmir’s Shopian town, a knot of young men, aged between 16 to 22, could be seen rolling cannabis joints.
A short walk away from the place, a wiry young man is trying to jab a syringe filled with some drug into his arm.
Many dingy streets of the town are littered with syringes and empty prescription bottles, while an almost deserted municipal shopping complex in the area has become a safe haven for drug addicts.
“The drug addiction is on the rise in the area and if we fail to check the menace, it will devour our young generation”, says Magray Mansoor, a social activist and chairperson of Civil Society Shopian.
Many youth aged between 17 to 25 are caught in the throes of even hardest drugs like heroin in the area. According to the data available with the Addiction Treatment Facility ( ATF) centre at District Hospital Shopian, at least 24 patients have been received at the centre since it was made fully operational in December 2021.
Dr Adil Farooq Mir, a medical officer at the centre told Greater Kashmir that most of the addicts used heroin.
“Of 24 patients, 23 revealed that they were taking heroin”, Mir said. He said that the youngest patient they received at the facility was barely 17.
He said that it could be inferred from the available data that “the heroin is the most prevalent drug among the young abusers”. Besides heroin , many youth use various psychotropic drugs and opioids.
“They began using the hard drugs once they developed resistance to the prescription drugs”, said another medico, adding that the issue is quite worrisome.
Last year, on December 4, members from civil society, police and civil administration organised a seminar at Town Hall Shopian in an attempt to keep the scourge of drugs off the society. The speakers also stressed on the religious clerics to play their role in curbing the menace.
“The main objective of the seminar was to raise awareness so that the menace could be kept at bay,” said Mansoor.
He said that he had learnt of late that some young women were also taking drugs, which was quite shocking. “It is high time that the law enforcement agencies, civil society and religious leaders work together to combat the threat”, Mansoor said. He said that the municipal property in Batapora area was being used by some youth for the purpose of drugs.
“We recently discovered syringes, cracked bottles and other such materials from the place”, he said. Over the past few years, at least four persons died due to drug abuse in the area.