Drug Abuse in India: Sociological Perspective

Relevance: G.S paper I: Society and Social Issues

Sociology: Sociological thinkers:  Robert K. Merton- Latent and manifest functions, conformity and deviance, reference groups.

Although the use of various psychoactive substances such as alcohol, cannabis and opioids has been observed in India for centuries, the current dimension of the extent and pattern of psychoactive substance use and the problems associated with their use are not well documented.

Drug Abuse in India

• Substance abuse exists in all population groups but adult men bear the brunt of substance use disorders.
• Alcohol is the most common psychoactive substance used by Indians. About 14.6% of population (between 10 to 75 years) consume alcohol. States with the highest prevalence of alcohol use are Chhattisgarh, Tripura, Punjab, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa.
• After Alcohol, Cannabis and Opioids are the next commonly used substances in India. About 2.8% of the population (3.1 crore individuals) reports having used any cannabis product within the previous year.
• According to NCRB data, in 2019, 7719 out of the total 7860 suicide victims due to drug abuse/alcohol addiction were male.
• Even in the data relating to deaths due to road accidents, drugs & alcohol are one of the most causative factors.

Reasons for use of drugs in India

• India is at the location between Golden Crescent (Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan) and Golden Triange (Burma, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam) which are the two largest opium producing regions of the World.
• Students and Youth consume drugs as a stress buster from their studies or work pressure. It is generally seen that an unemployed youth, out of frustration, ends up in taking drugs.
• Peer pressure and other psychological factors like the glamour attached to it and out of fun can cause teens to engage in risky behaviours, leading to substance abuse.
• People in the lower income group who cannot have an adequate amount of food, take drugs to sleep or relax.
• The cause behind drug menace is the drug cartels, crime syndicates and ultimately the ISI which is the biggest supplier of drugs.
• The African as well as the South Asian route being misused to bring drugs into the country.

Impact of Drug Abuse

• Drug abuse leads to physical, psychological, moral and intellectual decay. This means wastage of economic potential of young generation.
• Drug addiction causes immense human distress. Incidence of eve- teasing, group clashes, assault and impulsive murders increase with drug abuse.
• Drug use can lead to social and emotional problems and can affect relationships with family and friends.
• Problems with memory, attention and decision-making, which make daily living more difficult.
• Illegal production and distribution of drugs have spawned crime and violence worldwide.
• Increase in incidences of HIV, hepatitis B and C and tuberculosis due to addiction adds the reservoir of infection in the community burdening the health care system further.
• Women in India face greater problems from drug abuse. The consequences include domestic violence and infection with HIV, as well as the financial burden.

Efforts by India to reduce Drug abuse

As enshrined in its constitution (Article 47) and being one of the signatories of the United Nation’s International Conventions, India had the onus act to eliminate the use of illicit drugs, to develop measures to prevent drug use and to ensure availability of treatment for people with drug use disorders.

India has adopted the three-pronged strategies – supply, demand and harm reduction.

Drug De-addiction Programme (DDAP)

• Following the 1971’s UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, established an Expert Committee to look into the issue of drug and alcohol use in India.
• The Committee’s report was submitted in 1977, and after approval from the Planning Commission, Drug De-addiction Programme (DDAP) was rolled out in 1985-1986.
• The primary aim of the DDAP was drug demand reduction.

Sociological Explanations

Sociological explanations emphasize the importance of certain aspects of the social environment—social structure, social bonds to family and school, social interaction, and culture—or drug use, depending on the type of drug.

For drugs like heroin and crack that tend to be used mostly in large urban areas, the social structure, or, to be more precise, social inequality, certainly seems to matter.

As sociologist Elliott Currie (1994, p. 3) has observed, the use of these drugs by urban residents, most of them poor and of color, reflects the impact of poverty and racial inequality:

“Serious drug use is not evenly distributed: it runs ‘along the fault lines of our society.’ It is concentrated among some groups and not others, and has been for at least half a century.”

This fact helps explain why heroin use grew in the inner cities during the 1960s, as these areas remained poor even as the US economy was growing.

 Inner-city youths were attracted to heroin because its physiological effects helped them forget about their situation and also because the heroin subculture—using an illegal drug with friends, buying the drug from dealers, and so forth—was an exciting alternative to the bleakness of their daily lives. Crack became popular in inner cities during the 1980s for the same reasons.

Social bonds to families and schools also make a difference. Adolescents with weak bonds to their families and schools, as measured by such factors as the closeness they feel to their parents and teachers, are more likely to use drugs of various types than adolescents with stronger bonds to their families and schools.

Their weaker bonds prompt them to be less likely to accept conventional norms and more likely to use drugs and engage in other delinquent behavior.

Regarding social interaction, sociologists emphasize that peer influences greatly influence one’s likelihood of using alcohol, tobacco, and a host of other drugs (Hanson et al., 2012).

Much and probably most drug use begins during adolescence, when peer influences are especially important. When our friends during this stage of life are drinking, smoking, or using other drugs, many of us want to fit in with the crowd and thus use one of these drugs ourselves.

In a related explanation, sociologists also emphasize that society’s “drug culture” matters for drug use.

For example, because we have a culture that so favors alcohol, many people drink alcohol. And because we have a drug culture in general, it is no surprise, sociologically speaking, that drug use of many types is so common.

To the extent that social inequality, social interaction, and a drug culture matter for drug use, sociologists say, it is a mistake to view most drug use as stemming from an individual’s biological or psychological problems.

Although these problems do play a role for some individuals’ use of some drugs, drug use as a whole stems to a large degree from the social environment and must be understood as a social problem, and not just as an individual problem.

Way Forward

• Considering the enormous challenge of substance use disorders in the country, there is an urgent need of policies and programmes which can bring relief to the large number of affected Indian citizens.
• Scientific evidence-based treatment needs to be made available for people with Substance use disorders.
• A coordinated, multi-stakeholder response will be necessary to scale-up treatment programmes in the country.
• Evidence-based substance use prevention programmes are needed to protect the young people.
• A conducive legal and policy environment is needed to help control drug problems.
• Harm reduction needs to be embraced widely as a philosophy to deal with substance use.
• Prevention of drug abuse and its health and psychosocial impact should be made part of the curriculum from the upper primary level.
• Revival of school clubs for early identification of drug users and expert intervention and setting up of suggestion box in schools.
• Awareness building and educating people about ill effects of drug abuse.
• Community based intervention for motivational counselling, identification, treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts.
• Training of volunteer/service providers and other stakeholders with a view to build up a committed and skilled cadre.
• Undertake drug demand reduction efforts to address all forms of drug abuse including dependence related to the consumption of two or more substances at the same time.

Conclusion

• Drug menace is the manifestation of deep-rooted distortions in the socio-cultural, economic and political system. Being systemic and multi-dimensional, its solution shall have to be systemic and multi-pronged.
• It is emphasized the need of preventive, punitive and curative measures to tackle the menace.
• There is an urgent need to understand the complexity of the problem having far-reaching social, economic and political implications.
• There is a need to address all these factors responsible for drug menace in the region as punitive measures alone cannot uproot this menace.