Youth Engagement & Outreach prog on drug menace organized at Tral

Pulwama : The District Social Welfare office in collaboration with BDO Office Tral and AD Employment Pulwama Monday organized a programme on Drug menace in Town Hall Tral, Tehsil office Tral and Tehsil Social Welfare office Tral.
Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC)Tral, Shabir Ahmad Raina was the Chief Guest on the occasion. Vesides, Psychiatrist and other resource persons also took part in the program.
Addressing the function, the ADC said that the aim of the day is to make Tral free from drugs and to preserve the talent.
The ADC instructed the Social Welfare department to identify the Tral youth involved in the menace,bring them on the right track and raise awareness among them regarding the employment schemes of the Govt.
The resource persons said that in recent years Jammu and Kashmir has seen an exponential increase in the drug use and illicit drugs like heroin, cocaine, brown sugar and charas are available in the drug market. 90 percent of the patients enrolling in drug de-addiction centres are using heroin.
They said the number is increasing, and as per our OPDs we see around 40-50 patients every day and the kind of addiction we are seeing is very dangerous. Most of them are using illicit drugs like heroin and brown sugar and that too via injections. It is very dangerous because they get infections like hepatitis c and hepatitis b and also HIV.
In fact what we saw in our study is that there is an epidemic within an epidemic. It is becoming very common in these patients and it leads to chronic liver diseases resulting in death, they added.
The resource persons said that our leading role shall be on various key aspects including prevention, rehabilitation and integration, training and sensitization, community participation, generating awareness, up-gradation/establishment of drug de-addiction centres. It lays out a comprehensive action plan for addressing the drug addiction issue in its entirety, they added.