Heady cocktails

The drug trade continues to boom in India, and the Police seized almost 100 kg of heroin and opium each in Delhi alone in 2005.

AMAN SETHI in Delhi

"MY first reaction to Rahul Mahajan's arrest was the sinking realisation that cocaine prices would hit the roof," says Gopal, a recovering addict at a detoxification centre. "But prices should normalise once the police action subsides," he adds, with the air of a seasoned stock analyst.

Apart from appearing as a minor bull-run on the illicit drug market, the arrest of Rahul Mahajan, son of the slain Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pramod Mahajan, has had little impact on drug users across the country. Every day, discreet packages of "samaan" (literally, goods) find their way through complex matrices of police officers, drug smugglers, pushers, peddlers, chemists and users; each exacting a cut off every deal, reversing roles with transactions and ensuring that while other businesses respond to the vagaries of the financial markets, the drug trade never stops - that is, "nashe ka business chalta rahe".

"No one really knows the exact extent of the drug market in India," says A.S. Cheema, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Narcotics and Crime Prevention, Delhi Police. "The secretive nature of the market makes it impossible to gauge success, failure or the status quo." According to Cheema, estimates can be based on a variety of parameters such as drug seizures, number of registered users, arrests and convictions. According to police figures made available to Frontline, the Delhi Police seized almost 100 kilograms each of heroin and opium in Delhi alone in 2005.

A national-level survey on drug dependency, conducted in 2001 by the Ministry for Social Justice and Welfare, estimated the number of alcoholics at 10 million, cannabis dependants at 2.8 million and opium-users at 0.5 million. A more recent report titled "Extent, Patterns and Trends of Drug Abuse in India - National Survey" by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), put the figures at two million opiate-users, 8.7 million cannabis-users and 62.5 million alcohol users of whom between 17 and 20 per cent were dependent users.

However, the figures put out by the Union Ministry and the UNODC can only be treated as a starting point as users today inject themselves with anything from high-grade cocaine at Rs.5,000 a gram to pharmaceutical drug cocktails at Rs.20 a hit. Broadly speaking, the substances include natural products such as cannabis-derived marijuana (ganja) and hashish (charas), opium, poppy and "magic mushrooms"; derived products such as heroin - from opium, and cocaine from coca leaves; and pharma drugs such as buprenorphine (a synthetic opiate), methadone and Alprazolam. Solvents such as glue, petrol and correction fluid are also commonly abused substances - particularly by street children.

Cocaine and white (pure) heroin are the most expensive drugs available on the street and are used almost solely by well-heeled clients. "High-grade cocaine can set you back by about Rs.3,500 a gram while white (heroin) can cost you about Rs.600 a gram," says Rex, a Sri Lankan cocaine user, who was recently jailed for drug-peddling. Unless injected intravenously, the high lasts about 20 minutes to an hour, depending on the quality.

Brown sugar, or low-grade heroin is almost entirely responsible for India's opiate addiction problem. Termed "smack" by street pushers, its purity can be as low as 2 per cent since it is heavily adulterated with anything from rat poison to citric acid. While pure heroin can be heated into an easy flowing liquid, the impurities in Brown get embedded in the veins and capillaries on intravenous injection. These blockages cut off blood circulation and cause abscesses and aneurysms.

"Smack comes for about Rs.350 a gram," says Raju, a street artist and substance abuser. "However `medical nasha' is the cheapest and gives the most effective high." Medical nasha refers to a combination of commonly available prescription drugs that are combined to create a potent cocktail - most are powerful painkillers or opium-derived sedatives that are coupled with muscle relaxants and antihistamines (allergy suppressants). Tidigesic, Diazepam and Avil make one such combination that has been handed down from one generation of users to another. It is suspected that the combination was originally created by medical students experimenting with easily available chemicals. Tidigesic is a common trade name for buprenorphine, a drug that was originally marketed by Reckitt and Coleman in the 1980s as a powerful painkiller. It is a synthetic opiate and is now primarily used to treat opium dependence among drug-users, and, if taken in sufficient quantities, is capable of delivering a powerful "high". Diazepam, commercially available as Valium, is a muscle relaxant that is often used to adulterate pure heroin as it is found to enhance the effects of opiates. It is mixed in with Tidigesic for the same reason. Addicts also add Diazepam for its tangy flavour, which they say improves the quality of the high. Though available in liquid form in ampoules, Tidigesic and Diazepam are thick oily drugs that do not dissolve easily. Thus, the solution tends to get stuck in the veins and capillaries on injection, which can be extremely painful. The third component, Avil or Pheniramine maleate is a commonly available anti-histamine that is added to numb the arm while injecting and suppresses allergic bodily reactions. Frighteningly, the entire cocktail, syringe and all, can be purchased for as little as Rs.20 a hit.

While easily verifiable statistics are unavailable, a number of pharma-drug-abusers told Frontline that they first started with solvent abuse as children. According to Dr. Sandhya Bhalla, Director of Sharan, a drug de-addiction and detoxification centre, almost 75,000 of Delhi's estimated 1,50,000 street children have used drugs at some point. Most use a variety of toluene- and petroleum-based solvents such as rubber adhesives, nail polish removers, paint removers and greases that are inhaled, sniffed and even applied on rotis and eaten. The UNODC has declared 2006 as the year of drugs and children, but Sandhya Bhalla warns that drug abuse is only a symptom of a larger issue concerning street children and child rights.

The effects of drug and solvent abuse are well documented and range from depression, respiratory repression, tachycardia and dizziness to drug-induced comas and death. Solvents are known to cause liver, kidney and lung damage. The rising numbers of adult and child users have prompted demands for a National Drug Policy. However the government response has been limited in its scope and imagination. Sources in the Ministry of Social Justice and Welfare admit that drugs are still not a priority, but claim to be working towards changing that. In the meantime, faced with an information void, the Ministry continues to formulate abbreviated policies.