Punjab drug addiction: Minister dismisses Aiims report, says issue media creation

“Over 16 percent of Punjab's population is addicted to hard drugs,” said an affidavit submitted by Harjit Singh, secretary of the State’s Department of Social Security and Women and Child Development, citing a departmental survey in reply to a petition filed by some drug rehabilitation centres before the Punjab and Haryana High Court in May 2009.Back in February, Punjab's Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said, "Out of the 2.77 crore population of the state, only 0.06 percent was found abusing drugs, which is the lowest percentage across the nation. Badal, quite clearly, misquoted 16 percent as 0.06 percent.With the Punjab Assembly Election looming ahead, the state's drug problem has become a major poll plank. While the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government has been playing down extent of the problem, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, who is hoping to score big in the Assembly election, said Punjab once known for its "lush green farms and beauty, is now popular for drug abuse." Around 2,30,000 people in Punjab are opiod-dependent (heroin, morphine, synthetic drugs or products of the opium plant) revealed a 2015 study conducted by the Society for Promotion of Youth and Masses, an NGO, in collaboration with the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Aiims).Now, it's Vijay Sampla's, the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, turn to call the study an exaggerated assessment of Punjab's drug problem. Sampla told The Indian Express that the report is not authentic and that compared to Punjab, the numbers are way higher in other states.Though the study was commissioned by the ministry, Sampla said that another "proper nation-wide survey" will be conducted.The 2015 study “was not about all drugs, but just one type of drug—opioids, which means products of the opium plant, such as heroin and morphine, or synthetic drugs, which affect the body like opium”, said lead investigator Atul Ambekar, additional professor at Aiims.

Only 1.8% of the sample answered “yes”, while the actual admissions for treatment in those 10 districts were 2,414 in 2014. This yielded a figure of 134,000 opioid addicts for the 10 districts and 232,000 for the entire state.