Brief Overview of Substance Abuse; Causes, Consequences and Management

Abstract

Substance abuse is also known as drug abuse. It is a rapidly growing menace in India and so in the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. This problem places a huge burden on society as it generates loopholes in the physical, mental, familial, financial, legal and social fabrics of our life in the community. The common terms that are used to identify these maladaptive behaviors are drug addicts, substance user, alcoholic or more community based terms like baivda, charsi, drunkard, etc. These problems of substance abuse like alcohol, tobacco, opioids, cannabis etc. need to be stopped and ways are to identified to keep the younger generation away from this new and growing problem of drug addiction. Statistics have proved that youth in Kashmir are inclined to substances and are slowly and steadily going in the lap of substance use disorders