Poll after poll, drug abuse remains an unresolved issue in Punjab

Mainstreaming drugs that can be injected became a menace in Punjab and continues to be so. Some pharmaceutical companies illegally manufacture them

Bimla Devi has been waiting outside the Drug De-addiction Centre at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) since morning and it is way past lunch time. 

Her son, slightly over 20, took to substance abuse a few months ago. He is in the corner of the waiting area, sheepishly avoiding the gaze of a stranger as his mother narrates her hardship.

“Chitta lenda aye,” (he takes heroine) says Devi, who noticed a decline in her son’s health a couple of months ago and confronted him on that.

“He accepted taking drugs but was ready to quit and he himself agreed