KARACHI: Aijaz Ali Khan, secretary of the Ministry of Interior and Narcotics Control, said on Thursday that 246 million people were drug addicts globally and 200,000 drug addicts were dying every year due to drug overdose.
Citing a report of the UN Office of Drug Control, he said that 6.7 million Pakistanis were drug addicts and most of them are young people. He said that Punjab had the highest number of drug addicts i.e. three million, Sindh 1.7 million, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 1.6 million and Balochistan 280,000.
He said that about 90 percent of drug plants were in Afghanistan and 40 percent of drugs were being exported to Pakistan. Addressing a seminar titled “Drug and Narcotics Abuse Awareness for Students” organised by the Department of Psychology of the Karachi University (KU) and Drugs and Narcotics Division of the Ministry of Interior, Khan said that about four million people were hashish addicts, 860,000 were heroin addicts and about 31 million people were addicted to painkillers and tranquillisers. KU Acting Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Syed Arif Kamal said drug addiction was leading to many societal problems; therefore, all institutions must play their role to curb this menace.
KU Social Sciences Dean Prof Dr Moonis Ahmar lamented that the UN failed to take any measure to deal with this issue in the last 70 years and now it was holding special sessions in this regard, but it was too late. He said that youth accounted for 60 percent of the Pakistani population and it was unfortunate that most of the addicts were young. He said the government must take measures to curb this menace. KU Psychology Department Chairperson Prof Dr Anila Ambar Malik said that drug addiction was on the rise in Pakistan; therefore, the youth must be educated about it.
