Every seventh person in Punjab is consuming drugs: PGI study – India Today

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A study conducted by The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGI), Chandigarh, revealed that every seventh person in Punjab is consuming one or the other kind of drug, which makes up 15.4% of the population in Punjab. The study was done by the Department of community medicine of PGI.
While talking to India Today and AajTak, Prof JS Thakur said that in the last five years, approximately over 3 million people in Punjab were found to be consuming one or the other drugs. Over 2 million people in the state consume alcohol, which is the highest. Similarly, more than 1.5 million people consume tobacco. While around 1.7 lakh people consume opioids, followed by cannabinoids as well as sedative-inhalant- stimulants.
READ | After high court rap, Punjab govt likely to make STF drug menace report public soon
Dr Thakur said the alarming is that there is a large number of injecting drug users in the state with a high prevalence of HIV, which is 19.5 per cent.
Dr Thakur stressed that there should be a self-sustained strategy which will work towards supply, demand and harm reduction measures. “Supply reduction strategy means targeting illegal drugs, whereby the efforts generally involve attempts to disrupt the distribution and supply chains for these drugs. Demand reduction can be mediated via efforts aimed at reducing the public desire for illegal and illicit drugs. De-addiction services are contributing to demand reduction measures,” Dr Thakur said.
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