Visakhapatnam youth getting hooked to sedatives

VISAKHAPATNAM: The menace of drug abuse has spread its tentacles in the city of Vizag. Though reports of substance abuse are quite common in bigger cities such as Hyderabad where peddlers are rounded up every other month, it is only in the past few years that the port city has reported an increase in incidents relating to drug use.
In the last three months alone, two person in the city died due to alleged drug overdose.Nearly two months ago, a 35-year-old man was rushed to a government hospital but was declared brought dead by the duty doctor. While the doctors classified the death as one that took place under mysterious circumstances, an autopsy later confirmed that the cause of death was a drug overdose. In another incident, a 20-year-old met with a fatal accident near Venkojipalem but a post-mortem revealed that he had been driving under the influence of a sedative drug.
The usage of injectable sedative drugs such as Fortwin, Ketamine and Calmpose are on the rise, said T Venkatesh from an NGO, Association for Rural Development and Action Research (ARDAR), that runs the government-initiated Injectible Drug Users (IDU) programme and is engaged in identifying and counselling drug users. He added that a variety of other sedatives in the form of tablets such as Nitravet and Nitrosun and syrups such as Corex, Circodin and Phensedyl are also in vogue among the drug abusers.
Records indicate that the use of such sedative drugs has been on the rise from 2006. “There were hardly a couple of people who were addicted to drugs, but right now the count is over 1,500 and out of which we are counselling about 450 of them. Importantly, the percentage of student users is on the rise and they constitute about 50 per cent of the user community,” said a volunteer of IDU.
The composition of the users comprise all the three segments: affluent, middle-class and the poor, and the age group varies between 14 years to 35. “When it comes to middle class and the affluent section, it is generally the younger generation that are drawn to the drugs. While some take it up for fun, for others it is a form of flight from academic stress or depression,” said Professor Ranga Rao from the department of social work, Andhra University.
“The drug business has not reached an alarming proportion but it is certainly there and we have identified a few peddlers who are regular rowdy -sheeters and are busy networking. Moreover, the drug being used are of sedative category and cannot be categorised under narcotic substances,” said a senior police officer.
According to IDU officials, most drug users are multiple drug users, which means that they indulge in both smoking ganja and injecting sedatives or swallowing pills. But the question is, from where do they get them? Drug enforcement officials claim that a sedative cannot be procured without a registered medical practitioner’s prescription. “In fact sedative injections like Ketamine are generally not available with normal medical shops and can be bought only from pharmacy stores in hospitals as it is categorised as anaesthetic agent for pre and post-surgery cases,” said an official from the drug enforcement department.