Drug addiction in youth

Dr. Shakeel Ahmed Raina
Youth is the asset of a nation. Destiny of a nation depends upon its healthy, intelligent and upright youth. In the words of Dr. A. P.J Abdul Kalam, “Courage to think different, courage to invent, courage to discover the impossible, courage to travel into an unexplored path, courage to share knowledge, courage to remove pain, courage to reach the unreached, courage to combat problems and succeed are the unique qualities of youth”. Dr. Iqbal has nicely said ” Akabi Ruh Jab Bedar Hoti Hai Jawanu Main Nazir Ati Hai Un Ko Appani Manzil Asmanu Main”. A renowned mathematician Galoise had survived only for 20 years but his contribution in modern mathematics enthralled people all over the world. Indian mathematician Ramanujan has shown extra ordinary talent in mathematics but all he had done during short spain of life of 32 years. Hazrat Ali was the first among the male who accepted Islam. At that time he was just 9 years old. Later on he had shown wonders in knowledge, Judiciary and bravery. Medically human brain remains very active and young up to the age of 27. Hence during this period a young, healthy and energetic youth can do wonders. Hence our youth should not misuse this precious period and should be very careful about their health because health is wealth as health gives hope and hope gives everything. Any person, who misuses the period of youth, has to repent through out his life because as per Gandhiji  ‘‘negligence of young age cannot be repaired.’’
Today we see several types of addictions occur  in our youth including drug addiction and alcohol addiction. All these addictions are very harmful for their health and consequently also damage  career because physically as well as mentally poor students cannot perform well in studies as it said, a sound mind exists in a sound body.
Let us see the reasons which spoil a child: In my opinion the root cause of increasing addiction/crime rates among the children is the inadequate parenting. Most of the parents are not performing their basic duty towards their children properly. The most obligatory duty of the parents is to give proper guidance, coaching and proper food to their children till they are grown up so that they may become nice, competent and self-sufficient human beings. Majority of the parents (particularly fathers) are of the opinion that their duty towards their children is to put them in very expensive schools, make huge money for them, construct multi-storeyed buildings for them and storing of more and more materials for their comforts. For this purpose they do lot of labour by using both justified as well as unjustified means. As a result they do not give sufficient time to their children and consequently these children remain most of the time in the company of home servants or watch of television  or roam  in the streets. Under such circumstances one can easily guess what kind of character/behaviour is expected from these children?
I think all the parents after earning need based livelihood/performing their official duty should spare maximum time for their children. Educated parents should teach  their children themselves instead of sending them in tuition centres after school hours. Of course parents are great gift of God for their children. No shadow is better than the shadow of parents, no company is better than the company of parents, no advice is better than the advice of parents and no blessing is better than the blessing of parents. I am sure that a child who remains maximum time in company of his/her parents after school hours cannot be a spoiled child. Availability of easy money with children is also a cause of the drug addiction. Hence in the early age of children, parents should be very careful about their requirement and should avoid giving money in hands of their children.
Due to over ambition about career of children, parents forget to make some arrangements of moral/religious education for their kids by consuming their more and more times in modern education. Due to lack of moral/regious education, the children remain morally and socially very weak and hence  can be easily trapped in the bad habits.
Unemployment is also source of tension and frustration among the youth. Some times they consume some drugs to overcome their tension and become addict. Hence Youth should be properly looked after. The young cannot dream on an empty stomach. They must have jobs capable of serving their own as well as the nation’s ambitions. Child labour is also one of the causes of drug addiction among the poor children.
Cowardice is also an outcome of some drugs. Even some times, some drugs/alcohol makes its consumer worse than an animal. For example in mathematics, we have a very popular result known as Triangular Inequality. It states that sum of any two sides of a triangle is always greater than the 3rd side. Let us take an example of a cow. Suppose A and B be two positions on a plane. Let a cow be standing   point A and a bundle of grass be lying at the position B. If we allow the cow to move towards the position B. The cow will follow the straight path from the A to B unless there is some hurdle between the positions A and B. It means the cow knows the Triangular Inequality because any path from A to B other than straight path is lengthier by Triangular Inequality and therefore takes more time. On the other hand if a drunken person is allowed to move from A to B, he will follow the Zigzag path from A to B which is lengthier than the straight path from A to B by Triangular Inequality. It also means when a person is drunk, he loses the concept of Triangular Inequality.

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