Drug abuse is on the rise in the valley. Every single day, more and more youngsters are getting involved in this evil. Drug abusers are making innocent people prey to drug addiction. Teenagers and adolescents are ruining their careers by consuming excessive drugs. Their lives have become hell and most of the families are suffering because one of their member is a drug victim. This has created tense situations inside many homes of Kashmir. Some are drug abusers by choice while the rest have been forced to consume harmful substances. Unemployment is the main reason behind this evil. When youngsters are unemployed and fail to feed their families, they are more likely to use drugs or commit suicide. They think that there is only one way to escape the problems. Apart from all this, bad life situations like relationship problems, broken homes, peer pressure, poverty, insecurities, social pressures, depression etc, are some of the reasons why people are moving towards a fast pace. Currently, drug abuse has increased the maximum number of crimes in the valley. When money is not available to the drug victims, they commit theft, robbery, and abduction in order to pay for the dreadful drugs. Due to the shortage of money, some people have even attempted murder. If we have a look at the current scenario money and jewelry are looted in the daylight to fulfill the drug desires of the addicts. The addicts even scare their families and snatch money to consume drugs. Drug victims are roaming freely on streets, public places, and on river bridges. It is unfortunate that instead of offering namaz in mosques, the youth smokes dope. The drug victims are so shameless that they don’t even care about the older people watching them. As per reports, there are at least 67000 drug addicts of which 33000 are injected with heroin using syringes. Moreover many rehabilitation centers for drug addicts are set up in Srinagar in the blink of an eye by the administration. Nearly about 150 cases of drug victims are reported every single day with a maximum number of heroin users. Some people don’t want to report unless drugs make entry into their own homes. This is the biggest blunder ever! If people don’t report drug addicts, the poison can spread quickly from one place to another. Great news is that several drug victims have been able to recover and return to their normal lives through the rehabilitation process but unfortunately, the rest have gone too far that there is no road to return except death. Consumption of drugs spoils the entire life of a person. Drugs take away peace of mind and a person becomes restless. It is the responsibility of the educational institutions in the valley to keep an eye on the students. In fact, proper counseling must be provided to guide students on the right track. Hence religious organizations should also teach people to stay away from consuming toxic substances. No doubt, the Jammu and Kashmir police has nabbed many youngsters but still, there is a hidden drug mafia that has the intention to infect the whole valley. Seminars must be conducted to annihilate drugs. The administration is making great efforts to uproot this evil, and diverting youth towards sports to keep them away from drugs.
