Shrinking playground diluting anti-drug campaign
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: April 10, 2023 -
FROM the experts’ point of view there might be various factors for increasing number of youth abusing psychotropic substances but to the laymen gradual loss of playing space in the localities, easy availability of narcotic drugs like heroin at relatively cheaper price and lack of a mechanism to effectively prohibit sale of the controlled psychotropic drugs to the youngsters by medical stores would definitely tops the list for the drug abuse situation threatening to destroy the future pillars of the society.
Contrary to successive governments, central forces operating in the state, civil societies and student bodies working relentlessly to prevent further aggravation of the situation, the number of rehabilitation and counselling centres functioning across Manipur underscores that the problem has been on the rise.
In the state’s rural and suburban areas, local clubs and organisations have been preserving playgrounds for the local kids to indulge in both physical recreational and serious sports activities thereby helping to keep the youngsters away from bad habits. Some decades back, even the densely populated Imphal localities used to have plenty of playgrounds including inside school and college campuses or open space managed by clubs.
With many of these playing arena either converted to community halls and government offices or fencing constructed by authorities of educational institutions in the name of demarcating the boundary, the local children are bereft of the basic facility to remain proactive.
As a consequence, many of the kids remain idle and often get entrapped in substance abuse starting from use of tobacco items and graduating to heroin or other psychotropic drugs.
Seriousness of the situation could be comprehended from Social Welfare minister H Dingo calling upon every section of the society to shoulder responsibility in uprooting drugs from the state while conceding that efforts of the government and the Social Welfare Department alone would not solve the drug problem during a one-day media awareness workshop on ‘Media focus on demand reduction of drugs as part of War on Drugs’ jointly organised by Editors’ Guild Manipur and Social Welfare Department on Saturday.
Of the myriad issues plaguing the state, curbing drug abuse and alcoholism unarguably remains the toughest challenge for both the government machinery and civil society organisations.
Both civil societies and government departments have been periodically organising discourses and awareness campaigns with the stated objective of containing increasing instances of substance abuse.
However, proliferation of addictive substances including the relatively new world is yours pills and cultivation of poppy testify that the problem has been assuming serious proportion and entail collective effort.
As Manipur is being used as one of the transit routes for pushing in narcotic drugs from across Myanmar, which is within the notorious ‘golden triangle’ and inaccessible drug manufacturing and trading zones, it is obvious that the battle against drug abuse and smuggling will be an uphill task.
However, intensification of the on-going campaigns against substance, sincerity and competency on the part of the men and women in uniform, logistic and material support to the law enforcement agencies, implementing state-specific drug policy and preserving/restoring the playgrounds, to name a few suggestions might help save the youth from falling prey to drug addiction.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.