As many as 28.7% of schoolchildren in the district have used drugs, a survey has found.
Equally disquieting is that 39.3% of the students surveyed wanted to use drugs. As many as 41.3% of the drug users resorted to theft to fund their need for the intoxicants, the survey conducted by the Don Bosco Veedu Society, in association with Breads (Bangalore Rural Educational and Development Society), Bengaluru, observed.
Titled ‘A study on drug dependency among schoolchildren in Thiruvananthapuram district,’ the survey was conducted among 600 schoolchildren each in three clusters – urban, rural, and coastal. It covered a total of 1,800 students in 60 ICSE, CBSE, and State schools.
While 7.6 % of the students said they were using drugs currently, to another question on when they used drugs last, 18.1% of the children responded that they had used it ‘last month, week, or these days,’ hinting that the actual users currently may be more than those who had admitted to it.
The survey revealed that 18% of the students used it for leisure, while curiosity drove 8.5% to it. As many as 5% of the students said they did it to become popular among friends, and 4% were influenced by their peers.
As many as 22.1% of the respondents said they were forced by others to use drugs. Of these, 16.8% said their friends coerced them. As many as 68.9% of the students said their friends or relatives consumed drugs. Of these, parents constituted 32%, while relatives were 37.5%. Among children’s neighbours, 40.8% used drugs. In senior children, it was 32.7%.
Besides drug abuse by family, neighbours, and friends, the survey indicated easy availability of drugs as another factor in students’ getting hooked to drugs. About 85.8% of the students said they were aware of drug availability in their locality.
Beer (16.9%) was most commonly consumed by the children. Drugs such as ganja, brown sugar, and ‘magic mushroom’ were available. Children were widely using inhalants such as glue and petrol, which had high health hazards. ‘Shambhu,’ an addictive substance, and ‘Cool,’ a chewable tobacco product, were familiar to children.
A majority of the students (75.8%) procured drugs from shops, while 22.7% got it from close friends, and 16.9% from seniors.
As many as 4.9 % of the children said using drugs was not a wrong practice, and 3.7% of them had come into contact with law for drug use. Among the drug users, 48 per cent belonged to the 16-18 age group, while 43 were in the 14-15 age group. The remaining were in the 10-13 age group.
Fr. Thomas P.D, director of the Don Bosco Veedu Society, said it was of serious concern that an increasing number of children were stealing to feed their drug habits.
