Recently, a student of an Odisha based private college was admitted to the hospital due to substance abuse and the condition was declared critical. Marijuana is a banned drug under the Narcotics Act of India, but it is still available in most of the areas near colleges. But the main problem doesn’t lie in the availability of marijuana in a college area. The problem lies in the attitude of students towards life. Students develop the habit of smoking when they feel left alone. Adolescence is the age when no one thinks about the consequences of their actions. It’s also a time when many believe that there’s nobody to understand them. Due to lack of maturity, they get easily carried away with drug use and end up getting addicted. Peer pressure is a major factor for students who become addicted to Narcotics. Also, stress becomes an excuse for people to smoke. Today, cannabis is available near every college area. Even the small tea shops sell this drug. It is ruining the lives of students. In fact, Marijuana destroys the thinking power of students and makes them less creative. Markus, a fourth-year college student, says “I have been in this college for past four years and I always see people smoking weed, they don’t care whether it is the daytime or the nighttime, they just smoke. After coming to college people usually, forget their primary duty which is studies and get indulged in these things, and the sad part is most of them are not doing it because they want to but because they want to act cool in front of others”. Police officers have tried to control the supply of cannabis by conducting raids in the shops near the college campus. But there is a considerable time gap between these raids. Therefore, the shopkeepers re-stock those drugs, and people start repurchasing them. The method to control the use of this drug and many other drugs, especially in college areas, lies in the hand of only two people: one is the person itself, and the other one is the college. The colleges need to explain the adverse effects of cannabis and other drugs to students and also provide regular counselling sessions to prevent the use of this harmful drug among the youth of this country. Colleges can also conduct stress management classes to help students deal with everyday challenges. It is known to everyone that drugs destroy a human being from both the inside and outside. Colleges should keep a check on hostel students at night time to control drug intake. Odisha spends Rs 0.17 per head every month on consumption of Marijuana. Counselling can be life-saving. So government and concerned educational authorities should conduct hands-on counselling sessions for students. Also, we must educate parents about the signs that tell us whether a person is an addict or not. Openly talking about the use of drugs and its harmful effects should not be a taboo.
What might make us cool help us die
