We often come across adolescents and young children walking on
the streets or sitting in some isolated places of Guwahati with glue bottles
essentially stuck to their nostrils. Some time, we see them lying on the street
in a state of altered sensorium due to severe drug intoxication. Most of them
are street children with a habit of substance abuse. Non-medical use of intoxicating
chemical substances in order to achieve alterations in psychological
functioning has been termed as substance abuse. There are thousands of homeless
children, commonly referred to
as ‘street children’ in Guwahati, who live in unsafe
places such as streets, railway platforms, parks, near temples and dargahs, in
markets, under flyovers and bridges, near bus depots and stops, in makeshift
huts in slums, and substance abuse
is affecting around 82% of them.
The problem is more prevalent amongst the higher age group street boys with
longer duration of street life. It is noteworthy that as the age increases, substance
abuse becomes common amongst them, when compared to the younger age group.
These children’s substance abuse often commences with alcohol,
tobacco and inhalants which are legal and easily accessible in the city. The most
common type of substance abuse in the city-wide population of street children
is inhalant use. Inhalants are cheap, readily available and legal; making them
a popular way for theses children to get a high.
Whether it is glue, gasoline, paint thinner or nail polish
remover, they use these products for sniffing or huffing, inhaling the fumes
for their intoxicating effect. Majority of the substance abusers are in the
habit of sniffing Dendrite as an intoxicating substance regularly. Dendrite tubes
are cheap and readily available. They can spend Rs 10 to 20 easily to buy a tube
of Dendrite. They sniff it either through the nose or mouth. Sniffing of Dendrite
could cause addiction, change in personality and brain function, cognitive and
neurological impairment caused by brain cell death, lung and breathing
problems and sudden death due to cardiac arrhythmia. They cause teratogenic effects. So,
if a street girl is pregnant and she’s sniffing, it gets passed on to her baby and
causes birth defects of various kinds. We should spread awareness amongst these
children against the adverse effects of sniffing Dendrite and motivate them to
stop the habit.
Usually most of the shopkeepers are not aware of the harmful
effects of Dendrite. So we have to discourage them from selling Dendrite to children.
The district administration and law-enforcing bodies must enforce law to ban
the sale of Dendrite to children. The other most commonly used psychoactive
sub-stances are alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, whitener, cocaine, opiates or hallucinogens.
Some of them use intravenous drugs which cause addiction and in many cases
death from overdose. Injecting drugs carries a high risk of HIV infection, as
well as many other diseases, because of sharing contaminated needles. Most of
them use more than one type of psychoactive substance.
They begin the habit of using substances for many reasons. The
most common reasons are essentially peer pressure, the need to survive and to
experience pleasure or satisfy one’s own curiosity. The nature of continuous
exposure to the street and its associated lifestyles make them vulnerable to
the use of psychoactive substances. They are at risk of a number of different
dangers daily, as they work and live alone without adequate food, shelter, education,
affection and social security. As a positive coping mechanism to deal with the
stress of their lives, their adverse circumstances and to survive on the
streets, majority of them choose maladaptive strategies such as drinking
alcohol and using drugs. They turn to psychoactive substances as a way to escape
from the grim reality that
they face in life,
to bolster their courage
and strength to cope with the everyday challenges of life on the street,
due to frustration concerning living on the
street and to
cope with cold, hunger and fear.
They don’t have access to recreational facilities and often venture into activities
available to them on the street such as drug abuse and drinking. A lot of children
use drugs just for pleasure and experimentation.
Using intoxicating substances, of course, is not at all an effective
solution to such problems, since it renders them less capable of dealing with
stress and more likely only to turn to even more substance abuse than before.
The drugs usually make it difficult for them to communicate with others. Furthermore,
substances make it harder for them to reintegrate into society after living on
the street. The fact is that, most of these children who are using substances become
socially handicapped. They often struggle with addiction and other health
problems. Sometime they try to kill themselves as using alcohol or drugs
increases suicidal tendency. In order to
save money to buy psychoactive substances, they cut down on food expenses; many
of them drink tea to
dull hunger and even remain hungry. They often engage in activities
such as stealing, pick-pocketing, drug-peddling and prostitution for money to buy
psychoactive substances.
The NGOs and the Government should come forward to curb this problem
and save millions of vulnerable lives. It
requires specific legislation and attention from the Government. The main responsibility
to curb this problem and to assist these abusers should be given to some
city-based NGOs, which should be backed financially by the Government. The
volunteers of the NGOs must help these children to understand the dangers of
intoxicating substances, so that they have a better chance of turning their
lives around. In planning the
interventions, the service providers shouldn’t consider these children as a
single and homogeneous population as their rates of substance abuse vary widely
depending on age, gender, ethnicity, duration and current living circumstances
in the street. They should consider and assist every substance abuser street
children as a unique individual. Special efforts are needed to hook up these children
with treatment services and other kinds of help such as life skills and job
training. Some of them may need a pre-treatment stage where their immediate
crises are addressed through sheltering services and short-term detoxification.
Article Cr <Dr Dharmakanta Kumbhakar>
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