Soaring drug addiction among Kashmiri youth has crossed the one million mark, according to a study conducted in December 2022 by the Government Medical College, Srinagar, Department of Mental Health and Neurosciences in collaboration with the Health Services Department and financed by the Social Welfare Department.
About 33,000 syringes are used by drug addicts in Kashmir every day. Most abusers are in the age group of 17-33 years. A single drug addict spends Rs.88,183 every month to defray the expenditure on various kinds of drugs.
Drugs being used by both males and females are Heroin, Cocaine, Amphetamine Type Stimulants and Hallucinogens.
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 further exposed 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.
Several studies conducted in the recent past have shown an alarming shift in the pattern of substance abuse in terms of a rise in the number of female users and decreasing age at first use. The start age has fallen to as low as 09-10 years.
While earlier the number of opium users was more than that of heroin users, however, in the last few years, the trend has changed.
The number of heroin users escalated almost three times and there has been a 340 per cent increase in the number of patients seeking treatment for Intravenous (IV) Heroin abuse. If India as a whole is taken into consideration, opioid use is three times higher than that of the global average.