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Duped by Dopes- An alarming trend

Lucky Mahanta was a handsome lad in his school days, always ahead of his class academically and a bright boy indeed. After passing his Higher Secondary from a reputed boy’s school in Assam he went on to pursue higher studies in the capital city of India, a trend that is an in thing these days and gaining popularity by the day. But soon Lucky’s disposition changed his grades fell and so did his friend circle. He started hanging out with shady characters and formed a group of his own. Slowly he started borrowing money from his college mates and sometimes even begged for a couple of bucks. He sold his car and other expensive belongings to make ends meet. Vicky is now a mere shadow of his earlier robust self thanks to his heroin addiction he has missed the bus of life.
There are many young boys and girls in the northeast who are rapidly falling prey to the deadly clutches of narcotic drugs. Northeast is fast becoming a haven for druggies. The northeast’s proximity to the Golden Triangle encompassing parts of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos – all drug infested regions has made it susceptible to drug proliferation.
The ready availability of Heroin and other illicit drugs brought in primarily from Burma, Thailand and Laos are leading to a maximum number of addicted people in Assam and Manipur. Mentionably, the number of drug users in Assam has gone up to 50,000 where 20,000 are injecting drug users.

Drug peddlers are also on the rise in Assam and especially Guwahati as many youngsters are getting lured towards these psychotropic substances like Spasmaproxyvon capsules, Diazepum tablets, party drugs like Ecstacy and even the harmless Fancydril syrup and household adhesive Dendrite have made these youngsters slaves of their fatal attraction. In fact there are many haunts in the heart of Guwahati that are known to be drug joints where college kids are frequent visitors.

Guardians and Schools should come forward and tackle this problem together which threatens to destroy the fragile mind of unsuspecting youngsters. An estimated 1,00,000 kg of ganja , 10 kg of heroin and 40 kg of opium has been recovered while around 1,000 persons had been arrested under the NDPS Act in the last five years in the state in charges of drug trafficking. The statistics are alarming which should be stopped with immediate effect if we wish to protect our youth from its kiss of death
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Rituparna Goswami Pande's picture

Journalist, writer

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