Do you know an adolescent brain operates differently from an adult brain when it comes to decision making? For instance, a scientific experiment involving simulated driving was conducted by Prof. Laurence Steinberg of Temple University. It was observed that when adolescents play the driving game alone, their risk taking matched that of adults. However, when they played it with their friends around, the adolescents broke more traffic lights, and crashed more often. Wonder why? The study found that the brain regions associated with reward were overactive in adolescents when their friends were around. Reward center (go-system) is associated with pleasure. It reinforces the behavior that gives us pleasure. With this center being hyperactive in adolescents, it makes them impulsive, curious and risk taking.Their impulse control system is also not fully developed to prevent them from risk taking behavior.Therefore, the likelihood of an adolescent doing drugs is more given how their brains are wired. It is just like how a toddler may put his hands in the fire, a teen may try drugs. 

 

Drug use may begin innocently at first, out of curiosity, as a show-off to the friends, by succumbing to the peer pressure, or just to escape from the real world and its vagaries. Since the stop-system is less developed in adolescents, it doesn’t take a lot of time before the drug use becomes abuse and abuse becomes addiction. In fact, research has revealed that those who try drugs for the first time in their adolescent age are much more likely to become addicts than those who try it when they have crossed their twenties. Thus, drug prevention strategies must be targeted primarily at adolescents.

 

We need to adopt a multifaceted- multistage approach to prevent drug use. It should be analogous to the Swiss Cheese model of accident prevention i.e., there should be multiple layers of protection to make it difficult for an adolescent to try drugs at the first place, and then prevent things from escalating, if they try drugs. Addiction can occur only when all the layers of protection fail i.e., when all the holes of Swiss cheese align. These layers include, but may not be limited to, family, school, community, and scientific research.

 

Family

Family being the first learning place of any individual, the first layer of protection should be offered by the family. Family teaches many things to children but the mode of teaching should be conviction rather than coercion. You can’t tell a kid to say no to drugs if he is bullied outside.It is useless; drugs offer respite.  No matter how much you coerce them, they will continue to do their secret experiments. It is important to address the root cause of the problems that the kids may face rather than try to cure the symptoms. How can it be done? Communicate well with your children (don’t lecture them), and support them (emotionally, financially, cognitively and socially) so as to develop a strong bond with your children. It is important to spend time with our children. It helps us recognize aberrant behavior early on; interventions at earlier stages of drug use are always more effective.  Research has shown that the children who don’t do dinner with family are two to three times more likely to do drugs. Likewise, parents should help children in doing their homework so as to release their academic pressure and related stress. Parents should appreciate their children, encourage them, rather than compare them or be frustrated with them. Academic failures and feeling of worthlessness can lead to depression, drugs and suicide. 

 

Likewise, it is also important for family members to check their own behavior. They should not to do any drugs, especially in front of their children. Children of the parents who do drugs are more likely to follow their footsteps. Similarly, parents should avoid fighting in front of their children; it is disastrous for a child’s mental health. Deteriorating mental health is often a precursor to doing drugs and suicide. 

 

School

Currently, there are rarely any schoolsthat have programs which teach children on how to cope up with the stress and other social problems. There is a need for incorporating a curriculum in schools to improve the mental well-being of students, teach them the skills of social interaction, and critical thinkingso as to enhance their self-esteem. Low self-esteem can lead to drug use. The need for such a curriculum is higher than ever before, because the online system of education, with least social interaction, has already put a toll on the mental health.  The pandemic has further aggravated the situation. 

 

Community

The role of the community is crucial in reducing the drug use. First of all, the community should endeavor to create an environment where in the adolescents can channelize their energy, and risk taking tendency in a positive direction. This could include conduct of sports tournaments, and community level debate competitions, for instance. For catering to the thrill of some adolescents, adventure sports like mountain climbing and hiking should also be encouraged. These will keep the children busy, increase their social interaction, and help overcome the feeling of loneliness, often seen as a precursor to drug use and suicide. Engaging in different forms of exercise will also reduce their screen time, social media addiction (also correlated with drug use), and improve their overall well-being. 

 

Secondly, we need to do away with the stigma and ignominy associated with drug use. We all do mistakes in our lives, and then try to learn from them to become better individuals. The problem with drugs is that if we try drugs, we are no longer in control of ourselves. No matter how much restraint we may show, we are likely to relapse given the myriad of possibilities that lead to drug use. It is important that a drug user should be able to approach and communicate about their quagmire, at early stages, to their parents and/or to institutions that can help in rehabilitation, just like the case when one has any disease and they approach the doctors. Drug addiction is also a disease. Early intervention is imperative, because once a person becomes an addict; rehabilitation is a lot challenging even when institutional help is sought.   

 

Scientific Research

The role of the community in weakening the stigma associated with drug use has a critical role in promoting scientific research on drug de-addiction in Kashmir. Treating it just like a disease (it is a disease but unfortunately seen only as a character flaw), will make it easier for political parties to incorporate it in their manifestos, and subsequently policy makers can allocate funds in this direction appropriately. Adopting intuition based practices to reduce drug addiction are ineffective and can even exacerbate the already worsening situation by invoking curiosity. We have been running campaigns against using drugs for long, but its (in) effectiveness is evident. Thus, there is a need for research based approach to prevent as well as cure drug use and addiction.

 

Public policy

Existence of appropriate (umbrella) public policy can act as an enabler to strength the layers of protection. For instance, incorporating a curriculum in colleges that prepares young adults to be effective and supportive parents in future. Parenting is an art, and it needs to be enriched. No wonder that the kids in poor neighborhoods and slums, wherein there is a general lack of education, are more prone to drug use. Schools that work towards improvement of mental health could be provided special incentives. Likewise, policy makers can ensure the construction of more sports facilities so as to help the social groups direct the energy of the youth positively. The youth should be high on adventure and not high on drugs. Similarly, the policy makers must collaborate with institutions such as IMHANS (Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences Kashmir) and DDC PCR (Police controlled Drug De-Addiction and Rehabilitationcenters) before making a policy on drug related issues. 

 

In summary, drug addiction cannot be tackled by looking at it in isolation but the interconnections with other parameters need to be studied. Giving a few more examples, an effective domestic abuse policy can go a long way in ensuring the mental health of children. Making marriages easy can prevent many families, especially poor ones, from falling into depression and resorting to suicide and/or drug use for seeking refuge in alternate illusionary world which offers a temporary respite.  

 

 

(Author is PHD student in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, and can be mailed at mohd.umair@iitgn.ac.in)