SHILLONG: “Be smart, don’t start” drug awareness campaign was held at Assam Club, Laban on Saturday initiated by a local youth Danny Langstieh in collaboration with Manbha Foundation, Dorbar Shnong of Laban, Seng Teilang Kynthei Laban, Seng Samla Laban.
The resource person for the session was Dr Rica Lamar assisted by Neil Khongwir of Manbha Foundation. Lamar spoke about the various substance abuse in the society especially amongst school-going children and eventually get embroiled in drug network as they are an easy target.
She added people who dealt in the selling of drugs create a network and mainly target students in order to make them addicted to drugs.
“Initially, the drugs are given to the students for free and gradually when they get addicted to it, they start buying and consuming it. In fact, the students also eventually become a part of their network and start dealing in it. People can become addicted to drugs because of various reasons. The most common are out of Peer pressure, to de-stress, style and fashion, family issues,” she said.
Lamar pointed out that drug abuse was a disease and drug users should be made to understand that there was a way to come out of it.
She informed that drugs were easily available nowadays as India is a transit country because it is placed in the vicinity of the Golden Triangle consisting of Burma, Thailand and Cambodia.
“All that these people need is a helping hand and therefore, we should provide encouragement as well as support to these people in making these addicts come back to their normal lives and lead a healthy life,” she said.