This unique method of getting a ‘kick’ involves mixing of the liquid whitener and thinner (used to mask typographical errors) on a rag and inhaling it. Children addicted to it fall in the five to 18 age bracket. While most inhale it during late evenings and nights, serious addicts start inhaling it right from morning. These products cost below Rs 25 and is bought on a daily basis by the addicts. Those who want to economise opt for glue tubes, which are priced between Rs 5 and 10 and gives them a similar effect.
Slums in Madivala, Ulsoor and Chamarajpet, the K R Market, Gandhinagar market, Upparpet police station surroundings and Shivajinagar are their favourite hangouts.
Partha, who runs Kwality Stores at Ist Main, Chamarajpet, has witnessed many ‘sniffing’ children. “I clearly assess the child who comes in for glues or whiteners. If I think they are going to use it for their addiction, I refuse to sell it to them.”
This addiction is catching up in a big way among slum children in the area.“They gather together under cover of darkness under trees and partake of the pleasure it gives them,” he said.
Praveen Kumar, a businessman at Yeshwantpur, says, “Nail polish remover, paints and petrol and other products also give them a similar kind of pleasure. Turpentine was abused in a similar fashion earlier but it is not sold in shops anymore.
“It is a street culture and recreation for children doing it. It also helps them overcome the stench that emanates from the garbage where they carry on ragpicking. It is not like alcohol and other drugs and it is possible to help them get over the addiction,” says Father Verghese, Director of Don Bosco, Anjanahalli. “Of the 130 children in our home, 40 per cent were hooked to it earlier and we have weaned them out it,” he added.
Cases of serious addicts are, however, quite difficult. Edward Thomas, National Coordinator of Missing Child Search Network India, recalled cases of two young boys who were sent back as incurable cases by the deaddiction centre where they were admitted this week. “Their hands shiver and these lads just cannot live without the sniffing.”
There are boys and girls who buy three to four bottles a day and start the habit right from morning and love the hallucination this creates. “It also gives them tremendous courage to carry out feats of daredevilry. There is the case of a lad who placed his hand on a railway track under its influence some years ago and is begging on the streets as an amputee now,” Edward adds.
“Our volunteers, posted at railway stations and bus stops, daily bring between 10 and 15 children who land in the City from other States. If we miss out on a few hours, they are likely to fall in the company of other children who are addicts and the addiction process starts,” he added.
Don Bosco has also approached the company manufacturing it and asked them to incorporate material inside the thinners which would create a vomiting sensation and thereby prevent children from taking it. Unfortunately, the company has not responded, said Verghese. The Centre for Social Work at Christ College recently completed a study on the impact this was having on children and submitted it to the Centre.
