Dr. Fiaz Maqbool Fazili
The streets of Kashmir today are filled with a dangerous silence — a silence that hides smoke-filled corners, pills and syringes exchanged in the dark, parks where young lives drift toward a slow, preventable destruction, heading toward another healthcare catastrophe — Hepatitis C and HIV transmission. It is a silence that many of us choose to ignore until tragedy forces us to open our eyes. Tobacco, alcohol, and drugs have planted their roots deep in our neighbourhoods, schools, tuition centres, hostels, and even homes.
The question that haunts every thinking citizen is simple but painful: What went wrong with our youth? Where were the parents with hawkish vigilance to observe the abnormal? Where did we miss the bus?
There was a time, not long ago, when the idea of a Kashmiri girl involved in substance abuse or trafficking was unthinkable. Families raised children with modesty, fear of God, and strong societal boundaries. Yet today, addiction does not differentiate. Boys and girls, rich and poor, rural and urban, educated and uneducated — the poison has seeped everywhere.
Every other day, the Police and Anti-Narcotics Task Force announce massive seizures of chemical substances — heroin, brown sugar, cannabis, codeine syrups, smoked nicotine vapes, nerve soothers, and even psychotropic drugs stolen from medical supply chains. These are no longer isolated crimes; they are symptoms of a society losing its grip on moral, social, and parental responsibility.
This did not happen overnight. We failed at the earliest stages when intervention would have been easiest. The very concept of “catch them young” escaped our attention. Children picked up cigarettes thinking it was innocent curiosity. They tried costly e-cigarettes, believing them to be harmless. They tasted alcohol because someone told them it was modern and cool. They experimented with drugs because a friend insisted it was just for fun and stress relief.
These were the early warning signs we ignored. We laughed such things off as childhood mischief. We convinced ourselves that our own children could never fall prey to such evils — “My child is not like others.” Denial became our biggest accomplice in this destruction.
While families became busy chasing material success, and in some cases, entangled in marital discord or household conflicts, children began looking for emotional anchors elsewhere. The family dinner table disappeared, replaced by screens. Outdoor games and community bonding were replaced by loneliness, anxiety, social media comparison, and digital addictions.
When stress peaks without emotional support, youth look for escape routes. Unfortunately, the dealers and peddlers are waiting right outside their hostels, schools, colleges, parks, and riverbanks — ready to offer poison disguised as relief.
Morality collapsed slowly. We eroded the values that once protected our society — respect for elders, discipline in personal conduct, dignity in behaviour, and fear of God. Disobedience and crossing red lines were once seen as sins; now everything is negotiable, everything justified, everything someone else’s fault. Parents blame schools, schools blame society, the common man blames the pulpits of religious preachers, and society blames the government. In all this blame-shifting, the child stands unprotected, confused, and vulnerable.
Economic factors have multiplied the crisis. In a land suffering from joblessness and employment uncertainty, the drug trade has become a tempting business. Greed feeds on desperation. Young men and women realize that selling poison earns in one night what honest work cannot in months.
The enemy within society — and sometimes the outsider — has used this weakness strategically, turning narcotics into a quick source of income, ignoring the mass destruction aimed at our youth. When a society loses its young generation, it loses its future, oblivious to how such behaviour destroys our children from within.
Our religious institutions have tried, but their efforts are often too little, too late. Sermons have grown repetitive and disconnected from real threats. Topics that need a spotlight are pushed aside out of discomfort. We have started polishing rituals while forgetting the moral backbone that those rituals were meant to protect. A society that stops speaking uncomfortable truths becomes an easy target for corruption and addiction. When shame becomes extinct, ruin follows naturally.
The healthcare system is stretched thin. Rehabilitation centres are scarce — a glaring mismatch between availability, accessibility, and affordability. There are not enough trained psychiatrists, counsellors, or de-addiction professionals. Parents go from one clinic to another, hiding their tears and identities from neighbours to protect family honour. Many seek help only when addiction has already turned into an uncontrollable disease.
Caring for an addict is not a sprint; it is a marathon that drains emotional and financial strength. Families collapse under trauma, guilt, and helplessness.
Still, there is no time for hopelessness. The elephant is already in the room, and pretending it is not there would be fatal. We must look this crisis in the eye and take action that is aggressive, urgent, and united.
The First Battlefield: Home
Parents must rebuild trust with their children. They must speak openly about drugs, vaping, alcohol, the risks of infected syringes, and peer pressure. Parental monitoring is not spying — it is love in action. Knowing your child’s friends, habits, pocket money, and online activity is not interference; it is responsible parenting.
The Second Battlefield: Schools
Teachers must stop ignoring red flags. Behavioural change, absenteeism, isolation, sudden aggression, unexplained spending, poor performance, and new social circles are signs that demand immediate attention. Schools must have counsellors whom students can trust, not fear.
Education curricula should include awareness about the risks and vulnerabilities of substance abuse, emotional intelligence, self-restraint, coping skills for temptations and fantasy, and real-life consequences of addiction.
The Third Battlefield: Community
We need neighbourhood committees that work with preachers (mosque imams, in our context), panchayats, mohalla/masjid committees, NGOs, civil society groups like GCC (Group of Concerned Citizens), and youth clubs to create safe spaces for recreation, creativity, sports, and mentorship. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Purposeful activity keeps danger away.
The Fourth Battlefield: Policy and Enforcement
The police are working hard — sometimes heroically and historically — but enforcement alone cannot solve the crisis. Simultaneously, we must support their rehabilitation programs and not stigmatize victims. Every addict is someone’s child who needs help, not judgment.
We need many more de-addiction centres in Srinagar City and across district and sub-district levels — all under professional supervision.
The Fifth Battlefield: Health Sector Accountability
In the health sector, GCC (Group of Concerned Citizens) has brought forth the issue of grossly dilapidated buildings and poor infrastructure at Maternity Hospital Anantnag, as well as its inappropriate location. The need for putting the vacant GB Pant Hospital to proper and optimal use without further delay was also raised.
It was stated by Health Secretary Dr. Abid Rashid that the government has already completed a DPR for the Maternity Hospital, Anantnag, while a project is being formulated for GB Pant Hospital. The focus must remain on areas like Breast, GIT, Hernia, Diabetic Foot, Wound Care, Minimal Access, and General Surgery — all crucial to the overall health ecosystem that must not be neglected while fighting substance abuse and related health challenges.
Above all, youth must be empowered to reclaim their self-worth. They must be reminded that courage lies not in saying yes to drugs, but in saying no — in resisting peer pressure, and in choosing health and dignity over temporary escape. We must restore pride in being clean. We must celebrate those who help others stay away from harm.
We are late, but not too late. The window for saving this generation is still open. We owe it to the land we love and the children who will inherit it. Tobacco, drugs, and other deleterious substances are not just personal choices — they are social threats, economic burdens, health disasters, and moral failures.
We must correct our course immediately, collectively, and continuously.
The future of Kashmir depends on what we choose today. We either fight this epidemic with every resource we have, or we watch silently as our youth fall into darkness. History will not judge us by our excuses; it will judge us by whether we protected our children when danger arrived at their doorstep.
The hour has come to wake up. The moment to act is now.
(Author is a Concerned Citizen)
(Note:Dr. Fiaz Maqbool Fazili
Senior Consultant Surgeon (Surgical Gastroenterology, Onco-Surgery, Breast, GIT, Hernia, Diabetic Foot, Wound Care, Minimal Access, and General Surgery)
