Srinagar: The first-ever Drug De-addiction Policy is likely to be approved next week by State Administrative Council (SAC) headed by Governor Satya Pal Malik.
The draft drug de-addiction policy has been in public domain for quite a time now. It has underlined that drug addiction was widespread, fast-rising and is quickly taking the form of an epidemic in the State.
The draft policy has laid down broad guidelines including classroom programmes delivered by teachers or peer leaders focusing on life and social skills and introducing drug-resistance skills to address the problem.
The draft policy has called for stringent laws against the “rampant misuse of prescription medications and reckless sale of medication with psychoactive properties at medical shops.”
“Drug de-addiction centers should be integrated with the main hospitals to facilitate de-stigmatization of treatment process that occurs when centres are established in isolation.”
The draft of the policy was prepared by Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Government Medical College Srinagar in collaboration with Department of Psychiatry, SKIMS Medical College Srinagar and J&K State AIDS Control Society on the directions of the Department of Health and Medical Education.
A total of 14 departments and institutions are involved in the implementation of the policy in a bid to bring down substance abuse in the state.
It was put in the public domain on October 27, 2018 for inviting comments and suggestions from the academicians, civil society organisations, Government departments and general public so that suitable improvements could be made.
“The scientific data based on community surveys on drug related problems in J&K shows that deaths have started occurring directly due to over-dosages, convulsions and cardiac arrests and indirectly due to road traffic accidents”, they further said, adding “drug over-dose is quickly becoming a common emergency in the hospitals and if a proper policy is not followed to curb the menace there will be a loss of a generation”.
A recent study conducted by Srinagar based Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience (IMHANS) in a Drug De-addiction centre in Srinagar, found that over two-third of patients in the study had started substance abuse in the age group of 11-20 years. The most common substances of abuse identified included nicotine (94.4%), medicinal opioids (65.7%), cannabis (63.6%), benzodiazepines (45.5%), other prescription medications (43.4%), alcohol (32.5%), inhalants (11.1%), and cocaine (7.5%). The study revealed that poly-substance abuse was found in 91.9% of the studied patients. Inhalant use was seen predominantly among adolescents (54.5%) whereas nicotine (50.2%) , cannabis (49.2%), alcohol (51.1%), opioids (58.4%), and benzodiazepines (53.48%) were more predominant in the age group of 21 to 30 years.
