Guwahati, June 26: The number of intravenous drug users, who are taking opioid substitution therapy (OST) to kick the habit, has risen thrice over the past five years in Assam.
The number of drug users enrolling for OST programmes reveals the extent of drug abuse in the state, Assam State AIDS Control Society told the media here today during an awareness programme at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital on International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, commemorated every year on June 26.
OST is a maintenance therapy for opium-based drug (heroin, cocaine, brown sugar) users. It involves replacing an opioid with a longer acting but less euphoric one. Commonly used drugs for OST are methadone or buprenorphine, which are taken under medical supervision.
The Society has two OST centres - at GMCH and Diphu civil hospital - that registered 91 people taking daily OST in comparison to only 30 in 2012. The Society registered 4,275 intravenous drug users in May this year of which, 2,644 are still taking drugs.
"At present, little data is available on how many people consume drugs as it comes through unregulated channels and the users are hard to identify. So, when they come under a therapy programme, it gets recorded," Sanjeeb Chakraborty, an employee of Society, said.
According to SHI360, a North-Carolina-based NGO working on drug abuse in the Northeast, more than 50,000 youths are addicted to drugs or other psychotropic substances and more than 10,000 are in Assam. While the euphoria-inducing drugs are called narcotic drugs, those that cause hallucination or relaxe the body or initiate addictive behaviour among users are called psychotropic substances.
"The usage of heroin (an opium-based drug) is more common in Cachar, Dima Hasao, Karbi Anglong, Dhubri and Goalpara while brown sugar (an adulterated form of heroin) and pharmaceutical drugs are more prevelant in Nagaon, Golaghat, Jorhat, Sivasagar and Dibrugarh. Opium, in raw form, is also used in the state's districts bordering Arunachal Pradesh," Dipti Kailash, deputy technical leader of the NGO's Northeast chapter, told The Telegraph here today.
The bulk of the drugs enter the Northeast, especially Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, through Myanmar and then gets distributed throughout the region while some enter the state from Bihar through west Assam.
The involvement of the Society becomes necessary because the intravenous drug users often reuse the syringes that lead to the spread of HIV that causes AIDS, besides causing Hepatitis A, B and C. About 1.78 per cent of HIV-infected in the state have acquired the virus through syringes.
Manvendra Pratap Singh, project director of the Society, said, "Drug menace in the state has increased in the last few years. About 7.8 per cent of the population were addicted to drugs or psychotropic substances, according to a 2014 census, and it is increasing at a rate of 1.77 per cent."
Hemanta Ram Phukan, head of the department of psychiatry in GMCH, addiction at a very young age is one of the main reasons for increase in drug abuse.
A rally was taken out from Dighalipukhuri today to raise awareness against drug abuse.
