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Standing at the Edge: Will Kashmir Save Its Lost Generation from Drugs?

Credit By: AJAZ ASAD SHAH
  • Comments 0
  • 23 Apr 2026

The valley of Kashmir is standing at a difficult crossroads. For years, the reality of drugs was spoken of in whispers. Today, it confronts us in the open, as a mounting public health emergency that is tearing through families and futures.

 

Over 13 lakh people in Jammu and Kashmir are estimated to be using substances. Between 4.5 and 5.4 lakh are opioid users. Around 3.5 lakh are affected by alcohol, 1.3 lakh by cannabis, and nearly 1.5 lakh by sedatives. Most chilling of all: more than 1.6 lakh children between 10 and 17 years of age are already using substances.

 

These numbers are not abstractions. They are homes where parents lie awake at night, schoolbags that carry syringes instead of notebooks, families pawning their belongings not for a better life, but for one more chance at saving a child. This crisis is not at the margins; it lives in our neighbourhoods, our classrooms, our workplaces.

 

Substance use is no longer occasional. It is steady, spreading, and cutting across all sections of society. Opioids dominate, accounting for over 80 percent of cases in some studies, with a rising trend of injectable use—a pathway to HIV, hepatitis, and lifelong illness.

 

Stigma, denial, and silence have been powerful allies of this epidemic. Many patients reach treatment only when dependence is severe, and their lives are already fractured. By hiding the problem, we have allowed it to grow.

 

The government’s response, a declared “war on drugs” led by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, has intensified action against traffickers. Properties built through drug money are being demolished; licences, passports, and Aadhaar cards of those involved are being cancelled. This sends a strong message: drug trafficking will not be tolerated. But the war on drugs must not become a war on our own children.

 

Enforcement is essential, yet incomplete. If we see this only as a crime problem, we will abandon those who most need help. The boy with a syringe is not just a law-and-order statistic; he is also a son, a student, a person whose dreams have been derailed.

 

Civil society and officials are calling for broader action: stronger preventive measures, screening at entry points, vigilance over courier consignments, and the revival of mohalla-level committees that can identify peddlers, support families, and guide addicts toward treatment rather than shame.

 

Above all, we must treat addiction as an illness. This demands investment in mental health services, de‑addiction centres, counsellors in schools, early detection, and robust rehabilitation and after‑care so that recovery leads back to dignity, not to isolation and relapse.

 

Kashmir has survived decades of turmoil through resilience and perseverance. That strength is being tested again, not by an outside enemy, but by a slow poison within. We stand at a fork in the road: one path of denial and piecemeal responses, the other of courage, honesty, and collective action.

 

For the sake of our children and a generation on the brink, Kashmir must choose to act now.

 

(The Author is a social activist working in an international NGO)

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