Getting Wasted: Drug abuse becomes a fashion in capital’s schools

[Moiza]

http://nation.com.pk/islamabad/07-D...-abuse-becomes-a-fashion-in-capital-s-schools

Islamabad - Javed, a 17-year-old student, currently enrolled in a prestigious school in Islamabad, started smoking weed at the age of 14 as a way to kill time outside his academy in F-8.

Since then he has tried almost every drug available in the market. He has been in and out of rehabs but ends up relapsing after a couple of weeks. He is fighting a battle within, at a raw age when he should have been writing essays for college applications. Instead, he is waiting for his local dealer to drop his ‘stuff’ outside a local hospital.

Islamabad, the capital city of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, might look like a picturesque, quaint city but what goes on behind the tall walls of its elite institutions is not a secret.

Inside the gates of these well-guarded schools are resourceful children belonging to well-established families, aiming to maintain a westernized elite high school culture where drugs, alcohol and parties are a cultural norm legalized through school events.

The scent of expensive perfume and the sound of their latest Iphones surround these youngsters. They might speak in an almost foreign accent and step out of their shiny new cars, but the darkness that these teenagers are carrying with them is spreading like a wildfire.

Hard drugs are being consumed like candy in the capital. Gone are the days when drug addicts were found crouching in dark alleys. This new generation of sophisticated drug users belongs to expensive private schools, huffing and puffing in or near dainty cafes in F7 and tripping on concerts.

Drugs like the weed, cocaine, Ice (Meth) and even heroin are regularly used by the teenagers as low as the age of 8, most of which are being consumed through cigarettes.

Apart from opium and cannabis, recent surveys point to an increasing supply of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), cocaine and ecstasy which are high in demand between the elite circles of the capital city.

Moreover, a largely unregulated network of medical stores and pharmaceutical industry has led to the increasing distribution of controlled substances, mainly painkillers and sedatives since they rarely comply with full legal requirements of licensing, prescription checking and documentation.

The abuse of prescription drugs, especially the misuse of tranquilizers along with substances such as methaqualone is very common. Peer pressure and other psychological factors play a significant role in determining substance abuse amongst young adults, unable to cope with exam stress and teenage heartbreaks. Furthermore, the traditional use of drugs involving the use of gutka, opium, and heroin is common among the lower working class people like drivers and guards, who then go on to sell these drugs to children looking for an easy dose to get high.

Hash (Charas) is the most easily accessible drug, with a very high demand and is as cheap as Rs 66 per joint. It has recently been observed that Ice (or, meth) is becoming seemingly popular amongst teenagers and cost around Rs 1500-2500; smuggled ecstasy which costs Rs 3000 per pill; cocaine worth 10-12 thousand per gram and the deadliest of all, heroin costs a mere Rs 500 per gram.

To attract new customers, these dealers not only give huge discounts but also sell drugs on credit and provide cheap samples of deadlier drugs to get users addicted, thus becoming regular customers. Lower staffs of famous restaurants, drivers, shopkeepers, even sports teachers are selling drugs.

It is a very challenging task for parents to keep their children away from these drug peddlers. The idea of smoking up, getting high, and thus being ‘cool’ plays a significant role in brainwashing these kids to believe that this is not harmful at all.

Every sector in Islamabad has its dealer, who is just a call away; all you need is the contact details of a dealer and a reference to purchase the drugs. Notorious areas involved in drug peddling include the G sectors where one can even find empty alcohol bottles disposed off on the streets, drugs being sold outside mosques; E-11 and the surrounding deserted area,; French colony in F7; slums around the city; F-10 parking area and the adjoining park, F-8 Markaz and the rear side of Beverly Centre in blue area where crates of beer cans can be seen being exchanged on the roads regularly.

Shah, a 21-year-old student of one of the international program affiliate institute in Islamabad, said, “It’s a tradition to smoke up your first joint as soon as you enter O/A levels since it is considered to be a fashion statement as important as carrying the latest model phone.”

Pills are strongest they’ve been in a decade. Concerts and DJ nights at sports festival and even farewell and graduation parties at private institutes are frequent events where most of the kids are introduced to these drugs for the first time.

The other more experienced half finds a comfortable place to enjoy their buzz in. Despite regular security teams present at these events, students manage to get their pills, powders, cigarettes and even alcohol inside, concealed in water bottles, snapbacks and even tampons.

The raves at farmhouses in Bani Gala and Chak Shahzad are other places where the trend of popping pills and tripping on psychedelic beats is a regular occurrence. Teenagers as young as 15 and 16 are in fact hosting such raves and consuming drugs such as LSD from Peshawar and smuggled ecstasy.

Ahmad Waqqas, a criminal lawyer in Islamabad, says that a major reason contributing to the increasing drug abuse is the alarmingly low conviction rate of drug abusers and peddlers who encourage more people to get involved in this trade due to no fear of arrests.

Asma, a mother of two young adult boys, says that “Ever since my oldest son got addicted, my own mental and physical health has been severely affected and my marriage has been facing terrible turbulence due to the grave stress that comes along with a child addicted to drugs.”

“My son’s bad habit not only destroyed his future but also the future and mental health of my younger son since he got severely traumatized by his elder brother’s violently erratic behavior,” the distraught mother said. “If only I would have known about his involvement in substance abuse, I might have been able to save him,” she said, in a rueful manner.



Having completed my A levels recently I can testify to all of this being true. What a shame.

 

[MenInG]

This is truly tragic. For a country which has enough problems, we need this like a hole in the head!

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

How to judge this? If we judge by Islamic standards - obviously a big fail.

If we judge by developed nation standards - time to legalise it maaan....

 

[Moiza]

How to judge this? If we judge by Islamic standards - obviously a big fail.

If we judge by developed nation standards - time to legalise it maaan....

Not really. So many students are destroying the lives/careers through drugs and the last thing we need is it to be legalized. I have known many people who would have gotten into top tier uni at home and at abroad but are now studying in 2nd and 3rd tier unis of Pakistan. This affects Pakistan adversely in the long run when the already limited talent is washed away.

 

[TalentSpotterPk]

Huge failure for Islamic Republic.

Very Sad.

 

[Rayyman]

Huge failure for Islamic Republic.

Very Sad.

Seems like the morals of human beings are decreasing exponentially.

 

[DW44]

This is shoddy journalism at its finest, from the total lack of any statistical evidence to support the claim of there being an epidemic, an unusually alarmist term to use for a claim for which zero evidence is provided, the lumping together of wildly different substances like MDMA, Marijuana, Heroin and amphies, the eight year old "teenagers" who are hooked on multiple drugs because apparently it's so easy for eight year olds, who are also teenagers lest we forget that little nugget, to acquire controlled substances, and the most egregious offense of them all, the subtle suggestion that Marijuana/Hashish is a gateway drug that leads to harder drugs, a theory that has been so thoroughly debunked by now that it's no longer part of the discourse on drug policy in nations where such policy is made based on scientific evidence.

The biggest issue is that the author is clearly unaware of some very basic facts about what he/she is writing about. To start with the fact that French Colony in F-7 is listed as a hotspot for acquiring drugs suggests that the author just asked someone randomly what a good place to get drugs in Islamabad would be because that's a very common answer to that question ..... by people who don't know what they're talking about. If you go there seeking narcotics, at best you'll be told that no one deals in the narcotic of your choice(small time heroin suppliers notwithstanding) and more realistically you'll have a run in with the police who have a heavy presence at both entrances to the colony because of this reputation despite it being eight to ten years out of date.

"Drugs like the weed, cocaine, Ice (Meth) and even heroin are regularly used by the teenagers as low as the age of 8, most of which are being consumed through cigarettes." - This sentence basically sums this entire article up in a nutshell. Eight year old "teenagers" taking drugs is exceedingly rare to the point where you can count the number who do, in a city of 1.5 million, on your fingertips. The idea of crystal meth in cigarettes just defies belief. I'm not even going to go into how ridiculous it is to list those three substances in the same sentence and imply that they pose a similar amount of danger. Weed, by which I'm assuming the author means hashish because weed itself is extremely uncommon, is a fairly benign, non-addictive substance that really isn't known to do any serious lasting harm to users' health. The other two, on the other hand, are probably as bad as it gets when it comes to drugs. Meth in particular can trigger severe, remorseless violence in users and it's use has been on the up recently but so far the meth issue was mostly limited to Karachi. Islamabad has always been Cocaine country, a substance that is almost benign compared to Meth or Heroin(though very dangerous in its own right, especially in the wrong hands).

What really dents the article's credibility is that there is zero statistical evidence given to support the claims of an epidemic. The only drugs that can realistically be said to have a large enough footprint to justify the use of that term are heroin and hashish, and in a rational society the latter should not be a cause for concern. I won't go into how heroin spread so far and wide in Pakistan because that's a touchy subject here but let's just say that it had nothing to do with rich kids in Islamabad and it's still very much a poor man's drug. The author just randomly listed a few people's stories and presented that as evidence of an epidemic which is alarmist to the point of being irresponsible. A serious study would have considered all drugs individually and presented consumption statistics at the very least, along with demonstrating at least a cursory understanding of their effects and relative dangers instead of making ridiculous claims like eight year old teenagers smoking ice. That sadly, is not the case. Instead the author opts to use what are clearly poorly researched claims with zero evidence because he/she knows that in a conservative society with little awareness of the issue any ludicrous claims will gain traction as long as they're sufficiently alarmist. If using a few anecdotes is all it takes to make such a claim, one can reasonably write a similar story about pretty much any city in the world.

I don't see the relevance of raves to this article since drug use at such parties is par for the course everywhere in the world and unless they're using meth or heroin at these raves, which is unrealistic to the point of being preposterous, it's not something a country with the kind of social problems we have should be getting alarmed about. This seems to be a case of disgust at people partying being passed off as disgust at drug use with zero concern for any detail deeper than "OMG parties and drugs, hai Allah ab kya ho ga". We live in a country of 200 million and in a relatively prosperous city like Islamabad, there will always be people in a population of 1.5 million who don't agree with the state sanctioned lifestyle and seek to do their thing behind closed doors. Again, really not good enough to claim that there's an epidemic of "drugs", whatever that term means.

As far as legalization goes, the experience of nations that have legalized or decriminalized some substances has been mostly positive but the caveat here is that they are some of the richest nations on earth and have healthcare systems to match. Legalizing something like heroin or meth is a healthcare disaster waiting to happen. Heroin has already sunk its roots deep enough that a full seven or so million Pakistanis use it and in a place like Pakistan, that's basically your life destroyed once you're hooked. Legalizing something like marijuana/hashish or LSD, on the other hand, carries little risk of any undue strain being put on the healthcare system or whatever passes for that in Pakistan since these are substances that are far less addictive and harmful to users' health than some of the stuff that is already legal here like cigarettes.

The only argument that the article makes which I agree with is the prescription drug epidemic. There really are no checks and balances and apart from some of the bigger drug stores in upscale neighborhoods, no one asks for a prescription for stuff like benzos and opiates/opioids which, again, is a disaster in the making.

Overall, a fairly ill informed article full of unsubstantiated claims backed by no evidence and blatant alarmism based on those ludicrous claims.

 

[Moiza]

This is shoddy journalism at its finest, from the total lack of any statistical evidence to support the claim of there being an epidemic, an unusually alarmist term to use for a claim for which zero evidence is provided, the lumping together of wildly different substances like MDMA, Marijuana, Heroin and amphies, the eight year old "teenagers" who are hooked on multiple drugs because apparently it's so easy for eight year olds, who are also teenagers lest we forget that little nugget, to acquire controlled substances, and the most egregious offense of them all, the subtle suggestion that Marijuana/Hashish is a gateway drug that leads to harder drugs, a theory that has been so thoroughly debunked by now that it's no longer part of the discourse on drug policy in nations where such policy is made based on scientific evidence.

The biggest issue is that the author is clearly unaware of some very basic facts about what he/she is writing about. To start with the fact that French Colony in F-7 is listed as a hotspot for acquiring drugs suggests that the author just asked someone randomly what a good place to get drugs in Islamabad would be because that's a very common answer to that question ..... by people who don't know what they're talking about. If you go there seeking narcotics, at best you'll be told that no one deals in the narcotic of your choice(small time heroin suppliers notwithstanding) and more realistically you'll have a run in with the police who have a heavy presence at both entrances to the colony because of this reputation despite it being eight to ten years out of date.

"Drugs like the weed, cocaine, Ice (Meth) and even heroin are regularly used by the teenagers as low as the age of 8, most of which are being consumed through cigarettes." - This sentence basically sums this entire article up in a nutshell. Eight year old "teenagers" taking drugs is exceedingly rare to the point where you can count the number who do, in a city of 1.5 million, on your fingertips. The idea of crystal meth in cigarettes just defies belief. I'm not even going to go into how ridiculous it is to list those three substances in the same sentence and imply that they pose a similar amount of danger. Weed, by which I'm assuming the author means hashish because weed itself is extremely uncommon, is a fairly benign, non-addictive substance that really isn't known to do any serious lasting harm to users' health. The other two, on the other hand, are probably as bad as it gets when it comes to drugs. Meth in particular can trigger severe, remorseless violence in users and it's use has been on the up recently but so far the meth issue was mostly limited to Karachi. Islamabad has always been Cocaine country, a substance that is almost benign compared to Meth or Heroin(though very dangerous in its own right, especially in the wrong hands).

What really dents the article's credibility is that there is zero statistical evidence given to support the claims of an epidemic. The only drugs that can realistically be said to have a large enough footprint to justify the use of that term are heroin and hashish, and in a rational society the latter should not be a cause for concern. I won't go into how heroin spread so far and wide in Pakistan because that's a touchy subject here but let's just say that it had nothing to do with rich kids in Islamabad and it's still very much a poor man's drug. The author just randomly listed a few people's stories and presented that as evidence of an epidemic which is alarmist to the point of being irresponsible. A serious study would have considered all drugs individually and presented consumption statistics at the very least, along with demonstrating at least a cursory understanding of their effects and relative dangers instead of making ridiculous claims like eight year old teenagers smoking ice. That sadly, is not the case. Instead the author opts to use what are clearly poorly researched claims with zero evidence because he/she knows that in a conservative society with little awareness of the issue any ludicrous claims will gain traction as long as they're sufficiently alarmist. If using a few anecdotes is all it takes to make such a claim, one can reasonably write a similar story about pretty much any city in the world.

I don't see the relevance of raves to this article since drug use at such parties is par for the course everywhere in the world and unless they're using meth or heroin at these raves, which is unrealistic to the point of being preposterous, it's not something a country with the kind of social problems we have should be getting alarmed about. This seems to be a case of disgust at people partying being passed off as disgust at drug use with zero concern for any detail deeper than "OMG parties and drugs, hai Allah ab kya ho ga". We live in a country of 200 million and in a relatively prosperous city like Islamabad, there will always be people in a population of 1.5 million who don't agree with the state sanctioned lifestyle and seek to do their thing behind closed doors. Again, really not good enough to claim that there's an epidemic of "drugs", whatever that term means.

As far as legalization goes, the experience of nations that have legalized or decriminalized some substances has been mostly positive but the caveat here is that they are some of the richest nations on earth and have healthcare systems to match. Legalizing something like heroin or meth is a healthcare disaster waiting to happen. Heroin has already sunk its roots deep enough that a full seven or so million Pakistanis use it and in a place like Pakistan, that's basically your life destroyed once you're hooked. Legalizing something like marijuana/hashish or LSD, on the other hand, carries little risk of any undue strain being put on the healthcare system or whatever passes for that in Pakistan since these are substances that are far less addictive and harmful to users' health than some of the stuff that is already legal here like cigarettes.

The only argument that the article makes which I agree with is the prescription drug epidemic. There really are no checks and balances and apart from some of the bigger drug stores in upscale neighborhoods, no one asks for a prescription for stuff like benzos and opiates/opioids which, again, is a disaster in the making.

Overall, a fairly ill informed article full of unsubstantiated claims backed by no evidence and blatant alarmism based on those ludicrous claims.

I do agree with the lack of statistical evidence but nonetheless there is much truth to the stuff that the author has written. And only a highly ignorant person would deny the obvious drug epidemic in the younger generation of Islamabad (cant say for other cities since I dont have first hand experience). One clear indication of the epidemic is that our corrupt and useless ministry took notice of it and tried to do something about it. There were medical teams sent to the private schools of Islamabad to take the urine samples of the students but sadly the school administration didnt let them in. The chaos in the schools was funny to say the least when the medical teams arrived and everyone started panicking.

Can anyone from Lahore, Karchi and other cities shed light on the drug situation in their cities? Especially the ones studying in private schools.

 

[DW44]

I do agree with the lack of statistical evidence but nonetheless there is much truth to the stuff that the author has written. And only a highly ignorant person would deny the obvious drug epidemic in the younger generation of Islamabad (cant say for other cities since I dont have first hand experience). One clear indication of the epidemic is that our corrupt and useless ministry took notice of it and tried to do something about it. There were medical teams sent to the private schools of Islamabad to take the urine samples of the students but sadly the school administration didnt let them in. The chaos in the schools was funny to say the least when the medical teams arrived and everyone started panicking.

Can anyone from Lahore, Karchi and other cities shed light on the drug situation in their cities? Especially the ones studying in private schools.

Even if we disregard the lack of statistical evidence, to claim that there's an "epidemic" is utterly ridiculous. For starters you absolutely can't lump all the different substances that come under the umbrella term "drugs" and claim that there's a drug epidemic. The vast majority of these massive number of drug users that are being used to justify the use of the term 'epidemic' are simply casual hashish smokers. Hard drug usage, though not exactly uncommon, if we consider raw numbers, is a drop in the ocean if we consider those numbers as a percentage of the overall population. Heroin is the only drug common enough to justify using a term like epidemic and it's mostly a poor man's drug.

Of the drugs listed in this article, if we exclude marijuana and heroin, the combined number of all users of all the drugs listed would be a tiny fraction of the population, in the low tens of thousands at best in a population of 1.5 million. You're extrapolating your personal experiences to conclude that it's widespread all over which is simply not the case. I once went to school in the same city, remember, and in hindsight I can't believe how limited a school kid's perspective of the larger world around them is. A few thousand kids in high end schools taking drugs does not constitute an epidemic unless we be intellectual dishonest and include marijuana users which is the same as including petty traffic offenses in violent crime statistics and claiming there's a homicide epidemic.

Ministries taking notice and sending drug teams to schools is meaningless since articles exactly like this poorly researched one have been known to incite such action. Didn't CDA, our equivalent of a local government, recently express concern about the city's Muslim majority status being threatened by explosive growth in the Christian population and then try to use that as justification for uprooting slums? Besides, if any part of Islamabad can actually be said to have a drug epidemic, it's the Sindh/Punjab/Khyber/Balochistan/Gilgit Houses where the parliamentarians are lodged.

I can't speak for Karachi but drug use in Lahore is slightly higher than in Islamabad due to a larger variety of mostly higher quality drugs being available which is a function of the city's offering a market eight times the size of Islamabad which equates to about five or six times the combined purchasing power of Islamabad. That said, even in Lahore, the vast majority of what this article would call 'drug users' are casual marijuana smokers and only a minuscule minority indulges in harder drugs(again, excluding heroin which is a poor man's drug there too).

PS. Do eight year old teenagers in your school also smoke ice?

 

[aloo paratha]

Well..

 

[Moiza]

Even if we disregard the lack of statistical evidence, to claim that there's an "epidemic" is utterly ridiculous. For starters you absolutely can't lump all the different substances that come under the umbrella term "drugs" and claim that there's a drug epidemic. The vast majority of these massive number of drug users that are being used to justify the use of the term 'epidemic' are simply casual hashish smokers. Hard drug usage, though not exactly uncommon, if we consider raw numbers, is a drop in the ocean if we consider those numbers as a percentage of the overall population. Heroin is the only drug common enough to justify using a term like epidemic and it's mostly a poor man's drug.

Of the drugs listed in this article, if we exclude marijuana and heroin, the combined number of all users of all the drugs listed would be a tiny fraction of the population, in the low tens of thousands at best in a population of 1.5 million. You're extrapolating your personal experiences to conclude that it's widespread all over which is simply not the case. I once went to school in the same city, remember, and in hindsight I can't believe how limited a school kid's perspective of the larger world around them is. A few thousand kids in high end schools taking drugs does not constitute an epidemic unless we be intellectual dishonest and include marijuana users which is the same as including petty traffic offenses in violent crime statistics and claiming there's a homicide epidemic.

Ministries taking notice and sending drug teams to schools is meaningless since articles exactly like this poorly researched one have been known to incite such action. Didn't CDA, our equivalent of a local government, recently express concern about the city's Muslim majority status being threatened by explosive growth in the Christian population and then try to use that as justification for uprooting slums? Besides, if any part of Islamabad can actually be said to have a drug epidemic, it's the Sindh/Punjab/Khyber/Balochistan/Gilgit Houses where the parliamentarians are lodged.

I can't speak for Karachi but drug use in Lahore is slightly higher than in Islamabad due to a larger variety of mostly higher quality drugs being available which is a function of the city's offering a market eight times the size of Islamabad which equates to about five or six times the combined purchasing power of Islamabad. That said, even in Lahore, the vast majority of what this article would call 'drug users' are casual marijuana smokers and only a minuscule minority indulges in harder drugs(again, excluding heroin which is a poor man's drug there too).

PS. Do eight year old teenagers in your school also smoke ice?

Im yet to meet a meth user in Islamabad, 8 saal ka bacha tou door kee baat.

Well I too characterize hashish, weed and marijuana in the drug category and for many countries the usage of such drugs wouldnt be much of an issue but if you give the same harmless substances to our "tarsi hui" population then they tend to go over board. I cant prove this trough proper evidence but I speak from whatever experience I have had till now. The Pakistani muslim population has always had so many restrictions over them, "yeh nahi karna woh nahi karna" that whenever they do the stuff they were not supposed to then they go all in and lose all their self control. Again I agree with you that the usage of above mentioned drugs isnt a big cause of concern but when the school going children make doing these drugs their sole purpose of life then it becomes a problem. Moreover the drugs have become so cheap that even a group of 5-6 friends face no problem buying the drugs by contributing.

The biggest thing that concerns me is the age of the students who are into this stuff. I have friends in lums, nust and fast who do this stuff quite regularly but being of older age and being more mature they can control themselves and dont let these habit of theirs affect their studies and other more important stuff. When you give the same stuff to a 15 to 17-18 year old he will be more times than not go overboard and cause problems for himself. This young generation is the one that will hold the important offices one day and when they themselves dont have a hold on their life then who can you expect them to do anything good for the country? I dont know about you but this concerns me.

I personally have 11 good friends and 6 of them are proper drug users (marijuana, weed, hashish). I know another 15 people who live in my neighborhood and 10 of them sit in our local market all day smoking this stuff. All of these guys are in their twenties (23-25) and very few of them are going to a uni. This mentioned situation is of a sector in the heart of Islamabad. There is no doubt that this privileged class with hold important offices one day and as I have said above it should be a cause of concern for everyone living in the country.

 

[Syed1]

Hum achay time pe parh likh gaye bhai, humaray zamanay mein cigarette pina itni bari cheez samjhi jati thi, aj kal ke bachay tou charsay sharabien laga rahay hotay hain.

 

[Vorador]

Drug abuse is such a wrong term for the act. You might as well call listening to music "music abuse".

 

[chacha kashmiri]

Rich kids taking drugs and having the money to maintain their lifestyle without dropping out of school or getting a job to pay for the habit


Wow

Does this really happen
I thought it was only British Pakistanis who smoked weed

 

[dhump]

Weed was quite a norm in schools back in my days too although cocaine and meth was unheard of back than probably too expensive.

 

[dhump]

Rich kids taking drugs and having the money to maintain their lifestyle without dropping out of school or getting a job to pay for the habit


Wow

Does this really happen
I thought it was only British Pakistanis who smoked weed

You can buy weed from nearly every Paan shop in Pakistan it is really common.

 

[Major]

I will like to share my experience in this thread.

When i moved from Canada to Pakistan and joined Roots(worst institution) for o levels, i saw how everyone was hookup up with cigarette smoking and sheshas.

During Zardari's govt shesha was just usual, you could enter any cafe and be underage and get a shesha. I smoked shesha with friends for 4-5 months, after a while i quited, because i never smoke cigarettes or did any drugs, so i said to myself why do shesha then.

Anyways, i have witnessed by friends from o levels get hooked up to cigarettes and then later on to Chars.

How did this all happened is much more interesting.

My friends would never admit in person, but they always tried to impress the females of the school or class, and by that what they would do was they would buy cigarettes, and what was even more hilarious was that they would lit up 5-6 in a single hour infront of the females and only puff the cigarette not even smoke it properly.

Then i had a few other friends who would smoke cigarettes just to impress the other bad boy guys. They would smoke cigaretes infront of the guys to show they were also cool and bad boys. I even saw some nerdy guys do this too just to fit in.

Eventually, from cigarette these guys move over to chars.

Initially why guys do chars is due to the pop culture of being cool while doing drugs, thus they start on chars. Then this is followed by fitting in particular groups, hanging out by puffing that chars and acting cool and all grown up.

Buying chars isn't that difficult aswell. I have seen how my friends do it. You could easily call a dealer on phone and he will deliver it to you. Some students sell it as its easy money. You could score it off shop keepers, your tutors or even drivers. I know all this because my friends do it and im with them when they by this crap.

Whats soo hilarious about all this is that i have notice in rawal pindi, drugs are being done by the middle-upper and elite class, while the lower class is not into this. ANd this is the educated people im talking about

Also, this is not weed we are talking about in Pakistan, this hashish (canabis)

I have a cousin who claims he carries around a 1kg ball of this.

My friends even do alcohol aswell. I have a friend who even gets prostitutes easily for himself aswell.

 

[Major]

Im yet to meet a meth user in Islamabad, 8 saal ka bacha tou door kee baat.

Well I too characterize hashish, weed and marijuana in the drug category and for many countries the usage of such drugs wouldnt be much of an issue but if you give the same harmless substances to our "tarsi hui" population then they tend to go over board. I cant prove this trough proper evidence but I speak from whatever experience I have had till now. The Pakistani muslim population has always had so many restrictions over them, "yeh nahi karna woh nahi karna" that whenever they do the stuff they were not supposed to then they go all in and lose all their self control. Again I agree with you that the usage of above mentioned drugs isnt a big cause of concern but when the school going children make doing these drugs their sole purpose of life then it becomes a problem. Moreover the drugs have become so cheap that even a group of 5-6 friends face no problem buying the drugs by contributing.

The biggest thing that concerns me is the age of the students who are into this stuff. I have friends in lums, nust and fast who do this stuff quite regularly but being of older age and being more mature they can control themselves and dont let these habit of theirs affect their studies and other more important stuff. When you give the same stuff to a 15 to 17-18 year old he will be more times than not go overboard and cause problems for himself. This young generation is the one that will hold the important offices one day and when they themselves dont have a hold on their life then who can you expect them to do anything good for the country? I dont know about you but this concerns me.

I personally have 11 good friends and 6 of them are proper drug users (marijuana, weed, hashish). I know another 15 people who live in my neighborhood and 10 of them sit in our local market all day smoking this stuff. All of these guys are in their twenties (23-25) and very few of them are going to a uni. This mentioned situation is of a sector in the heart of Islamabad. There is no doubt that this privileged class with hold important offices one day and as I have said above it should be a cause of concern for everyone living in the country.

it might not affect their lifestyle, but it ruins their health. Plus, because of them more people get hooked up, if 10 people get hooked up 1 would be bound to go over the limits and could have serious serious health problems, and for that all the other users should hold the blame because of the influence.

Drug use and cigarette smoking is a negative externality. Drugs are smoked in groups, there will always be that guy who wants to fit in and does the drugs to fit in those set of people.

more people get hooked up.

 

[Indiafan]

How to judge this? If we judge by Islamic standards - obviously a big fail.

If we judge by developed nation standards - time to legalise it maaan....

Where is hard drugs legalized in the west? Only marijuana, which has much lesser side effects than cigarettes or sisha/hukkas/beedis is. Also legalized doesn't mean under-aged people and school kids can use it.

 

[PakLFC]

Smoking and drinking is now seen as part of being fashionable everywhere. Those who resist are told to "get with the times" as if abusing your body is the way to go. I counter this by telling them they look about 20 years older then what they are. A 20 year old junkie looks around 40 years of age where as even smoking tobacco quickly ages a person. There are other ways to pass time like getting a new hobby or travelling is possible. Don't expect the world to feel sorry for you if you meet an early grave due to such bad habits.

 

[TalentSpotterPk]

[UTUBE]uYVXAkLQG3Y[/UTUBE]

 

[Syed1]

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Yaar hum log achay time pe parh likh gaye, aj kal ke bachay tou buhat bigar gaye hain..

 

[TalentSpotterPk]

Yaar hum log achay time pe parh likh gaye, aj kal ke bachay tou buhat bigar gaye hain..

Exactly. May Allah keep our next generations on right track . Hope governments take steps to minimise this menace. It is dissapointing that these things are associated more with schools which give quality education.

 

[Moiza]

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Idk why many are still so ignorant about this problem. Many flat out refuse to believe that this is an actual problem to begin with.

 

[desirous of desire]

Sometimes I think if these are the consequences of actions coming in front of our elite class considering the city is full of bureaucrats and their families who(majority of them) feed on corrupt money by exploiting the poor.