Footloose & Fancy-Free: First steps to the valley of no return

At least 20 persons below the age of 18 years in Bihar are getting their virgin ‘fix’ out of a hypodermic needle every day. That’s a ballpark figure thrown out by Jojo Bimal, who is with an NGO working with IDUs, or intravenous drug users, in the state.
Organisations offering technical support for IDUs in partnership with Bihar State Aids Control Society (BSACS) are mainly concerned with the prevention and management of HIV and AIDS through ‘targeted interventions’.Hridaya, one such resource centre under India HIV Aids Alliance, covers 2,302 IDUs (20 of whom are women) under 12 such targeted interventions.
“We’re working with people, mainly addicts who inject drugs using needles. The number of other drug users, those who use ganja, cannabis, charas, ecstasy and heroin by smoking or sniffing are not covered. Then there are the other addicts who sniff glue or abuse medical formulations. Many of those young people who first start off sniffing Xerox fluid or smoking ganja may slowly become addicts, and then travel up to more ‘potent drugs’ ending up as needle users,” explains Jojo, who travels throughout Bihar interacting with IDUs under the BSACS’ programmes.
According to a NACO-Hridaya report, 95% of IDUs in Bihar said their first ‘legal drug’ was tobacco (average age at first use 16 years), 77% said their first illegal non-injecting drug was cannabis (age at first use 19 years) and first illicit injecting drug was Buprenophine (47%) and Pentazocine (45%), first used at around 26 years of age. The last two are opioids, or medications that relieve pain, available under different brand names and formulations. They reduce the intensity of pain signals reaching the brain and affect those brain areas controlling emotions, which diminishes the effects of a painful stimulus. They also have ‘mind-altering’ side effects which lead to ‘psychedelic’ highs.
Most of us think people who inject drugs use cocaine or some other exotic derivatives. The truth is different. “People in Bihar inject sedatives like avil, spasmoproxyvon, fortrivin, calmpose and diazepam,” says Jojo, who also said that abuse of these substances increased in certain areas of Bihar when the illegal cocaine supply from across the UP border began dwindling.
How do people get their first fix? The report indicates about 75% of the IDUs received their first injection from someone else: an experienced friend, spouse, sex partner or client. Would you believe 19% of the injectors received their first fix from health workers? Evidently, these people received these injections to relieve pain, but got hooked on the ‘ceiling side effects’. Only 5% of the respondents in the NACO-Hridaya report injected themselves the first time.
“Recreational drug use and addiction are two separate things,” a young collegian said, trying to justify his use of non-injected drug. “Recreational drug use is occasional, just for fun. When you start hitting up regularly, dependency on drugs increases. That’s when you’re really in deep shit. Small amounts no longer work; you need bigger and stronger doses. And that’s when you go over to the valley of no return.”
The college boy, like several of his pals, abuses medical substances as well as smokes ganja and has even ‘snorted cocaine’ by his own admission. Why? Partly because of peer pressure, but mostly when he’s ‘pissed off by his parents and the world in general’, he says. He says he doesn’t have a ‘habit’. Yet. But like several young people in your city, it all started when he was in the eighth grade, aged 14, with that first cigarette bought from the friendly ‘paan wala’!