"Burden of Untreated Addicts on the Society"

Annual Conference of North Zone Indian Psychiatric Society (NZIPS) was held from 27th to 28th October 2012 at Sri Ganga Nagar (Rajasthan) in which Dr Chander Mohan, Professor Psychiatry ASCOMS Medical College, Jammu chaired the main scientific session on drug addiction in society. Ms.Suneel Vatsyayan ,Chairman ,Nada India Foundation shared his views on "Burden of Untreated Addicts on the society" in the session.

lOn 26 June 2004, UNODC and the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India jointly launched the National Survey on the Extent, Pattern and Trends of Drug Abuse in India

According to the survey projection in India, there are approximately:

l62.5 million alcohol users

l8.7 million cannabis users

l2 million opiate users

It was observed that among current alcohol users, 17% were dependent users. Correspondingly, 26% of current cannabis users and 22% of current opiate users were dependent users.

12.8 million drug -dependent individuals in terms of provision of treatment service.

Burden of Disease :Alcohol and substance abuse

The World Health Report 2002, which indicated that 4% of the burden of disease and 3.2% of all deaths globally are attributed to alcohol, and that alcohol is the foremost risk to health in low-mortality developing countries and the third in developed countries.

Mr.Vatsyayan said “Indian society is losing more than it is gaining due to alcohol”

It is estimated that while gains in terms of revenue from alcohol sales in India are INR 216 billion every year, losses from the adverse effects of alcohol are estimated to be INR 244 billion, apart from immeasurable losses due to multiple and rollover effects of alcohol consumption....Bangalore study (Gururaj, 2006).

Non- communicable diseases (NCD) and Alcohol

lAlcohol can also significantly drain family budgets, since costs for NCD-related health care, medicines, and costs for alcohol diverts households’ income and resources from ensuring food and nutrition security and from basic education.

Limited reach of treatment … challenges ahead

lDrug treatment that is limited to abstinence and acceptance of the addict identity has excluded the majority of drug users who are not ready or interested in quitting drugs or taking on this identity or disease.

This limited drug treatment reach also add into the burden of untreated addict on society

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