One survey on drugs not enough, says PGI expert

Chandigarh : As political storm brews over the latest survey on the drug menace, Dr Ajit Avasthi, head of the psychiatry department at the PGIMER, has said more studies are required to check the prevalence of addiction in the state.
“One study is not enough and cannot give the final verdict on the prevalence of drug menace. It is a continuous process. The situation keeps on changing from time to time and so is the use of drugs,” said Dr Avasthi, the principal investigator of the survey.
When pointed out that several sections of society were left out in the survey which could mean that findings were misleading, he said the figures were reliable. He, however, added: “The survey should be conducted on people living in slums, deprived sections, higher society, students, IT professionals and party-goers.”
The PGIMER survey brought out that the number of people addicted to opioid in the state could be about 2.7 lakh. The survey, “Epidemiology of Substance Use and Dependence in the state of Punjab”, is divided into two parts. Under the household survey, researchers studied 6,398 households and interviewed 13,295 respondents across 22 districts of the state. In the rapid assessment survey, 6,600 addicts were interviewed — 300 from each of the 22 districts.
The data for the household survey was collected between November 2015 and April 2016. And the data for the rapid assessment survey was collected from June 2016 to January 2017.
SAD-Cong duel continues : Chandigarh/Jalandhar: SAD MP Prem Singh Chandumajra has demanded a public apology from Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal for allegedly defaming Punjabis. The MP said the duo, in the run-up to the Assembly elections, had branded a majority of the Punjabi youth as drug addicts. “Now, a PGIMER study has proved their charges wrong,” he said. Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Nimisha Mehta asked SAD chief Sukhbir Badal to explain why Punjab had stood second in the country in the registration of cases under the NDPS Act during the Akali-BJP rule. She said as per the National Crime Records Bureau figures, 46,923 NDPS cases were registered in India in 2014, including 14,483 in Punjab.