JOIN USTalking drugs in Punjab
In Punjab, they have. Rahul Gandhi, clearly briefed to the hilt with data, informed us that 70 percent of Punjab's youth were drug addicts. Punjab's Minister of Health and Family Welfare Surjit Kumar Jayani marked the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking by giving us the good news, citing and interpreting an AIIMS report, that only one percent of the state’s population was addicted to drugs, a marked improvement over the 16 percent figure given under oath to a High Court by Punjab's Department of Social Security and Women and Child Development in May 2009.
More good news came earlier this year when Punjab's Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal worked the data a little more to inform us that “out of the 2.77 crore population of the state, only 0.06% was found abusing drugs."
Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla took a simpler route. When an AIIMS study, commissioned by his ministry, estimated that Punjabis were spending Rs 7,575 crore annually on opioid drugs, Sampla rejected the findings and asked AIIMS to conduct a “proper survey” all across India. Reason? He said his gut feeling was that the AIIMS study was "not authentic."
From complete denial to grudging acceptance and then doomsday scenarios, the row over Udta Punjab did two things - it took those in denial by the scruff of their neck and forced them to have a real, hard look at the problem, and it created enough hullabaloo for vast sections in India and abroad to think the worse of Punjabis.
Lying somewhere in between, the truth is neither very appealing nor so repulsive.
Is the drug problem in Punjab exaggerated? Most certainly. Is the state government trying a cover up? Most blatantly. Should we worry no end? Yes, unless you want to wait till you find a packet in your child's schoolbag. Is the government serious about dealing with the problem? Well, this is no time for jokes.
Does the government have a strategy to tackle it on both law and order front as well as on health front? Well, if it has, it must be one of the most closely guarded secrets.
We have blamed everyone, with the exception of ISIS: from Pakistan to AIIMS researchers to political opponents to Bollywood filmmakers.
The only people seriously fighting against drug abuse are the drug addicts. The National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC) at the AIIMS found that 80% of opioid dependent addicts in Punjab had tried to wriggle out of the quagmire they found themselves in, and they did so by opting for the Opiate Substitution Therapy. Endorsed by the WHO as well as by the Indian Psychiatric Society, it requires users to go through a course of opioate medicines, available only at de-addiction centres run by the state.
This was the most cost-effective means. Opioate medicines are inexpensive, less than $1 a day, and compared to what addicts were spending on the dope, the treatment is affordable. However, the state's capacity to mess up is unfathomably huge.
Just as it misinterprets data from surveys and studies, the Punjab Government seems to have a poor understanding of rules governing Opioid Substitution Therapy. It allows such a course of treatment for only the licensed in-patient centres. On top of that, a misperception prevails among the kin of victims who think a few days at a de-addiction centre and taking opioate medicines diligently would cure them.
Both need to change. Expertsare unequivocal in saying that the Opioid Substitution Therapy must be available to out-patients and should thus be part of clinic-based health services. Also, that it takes years of sustained treatment to shun drugs, not a few days.
PiyushMahajan, a third-year junior resident at the Department of Psychiatry, Government Medical College, Amritsar, in a recent article described in chilling detail how doctors often have to deal with "aggressive, impulsive, abusive" addict patients, unlike the picture of a patient lying prostate on the couch and bantering with the doctor in TV serials dealing with the turf, such as In Treatment. Even in the din of allegations and Udta Punjab row, we did not hear a word about training doctors to deal with this category of patients, a flaw very symptomatic of the lack of seriousness that has permeated all layers of stakeholders.
Only a people in a stupor think in terms of binaries. The ruling alliance’s spin is to ask people to decide if it is a humungous problem or an exercise to defame Punjab. The opposition's focus is on whether making drugs a centrepiece of its election campaign can pave the road to power. As for the media, it timed its coverage to depict how easily one can find drugs in Punjab. Every channel worth its name ran a sting operation in the bylanes of some major town. Seriously? You need a sting operation to prove what is easily available?
When complex socio-political issues, nuanced statistical interpretations and inferences and accountability of multiple stakeholders are all negotiated with the larger masses through a Bollywood movie, it is a sign of a bankruptcy of ideas, or a refusal to grapple with a problem that has tentacles far too many and which run too deep.
Countering drug abuse needs job creation, industry revival, massive push into agriculture research and extension, proactive engagement with the institution of gram sabha, better investment in government-run school system that is currently in a shambles, and an inspired initiative to put doctors, equipment and medicines in civil dispensaries and hospitals.
Better vigil at the border is a no-brainer, as are police reforms. A sick education and health system, coupled with stagnant farms pushes people into the welcoming fold of drug dealers. At the same time, a political culture that privileges conspicuous consumption acts as a pull factor. Together, the push and pull powers are sucking Punjabis deeper into the vortex.
In an irony that would be too comical, if not tragic, scores of gyms in Punjab play songs that glorify drugs, guns, foreign brands of cars and talk about revenge-seeking mindset in adulatory tones.
The only simple remedy is to recognise that any solutions will have to deal with the complexity of the problem. So far, all three claimants to power in Punjab have fallen short. The ruling Akali Dal denies the severity of the problem, the Congress' near-anointed chief ministerial candidate Amarinder Singh says he will solve the problem in four weeks, and AamAadmi Party says they themselves are the solution.
When in doubt, blame the foreign hand. Amarinder Singh has now said elements in BSF are hand in glove with Pak Rangers and are letting drugs into the country. Sukhbir Singh Badal has been demanding better border control. We have so far been spared a demand a la Donald Trump to erect a wall along Punjab's border with Rajasthan.
In the best traditions of escapism, we went to the cinema halls, but PehlajNehalani made sure that Udta Punjab, instead of taking us by the scruff of our neck and forcing us to look at the drugs problem, primarily serves to bring some much needed correctives to the Censor Board.