Come Christmas, and celebrations begin full swing for the New Year’s eve. Keeping the spirits high at this time makes perfect sense. But over the past few years, this yearend celebration has evolved into something more. And ugly. High spirits is no longer about joie de vivre. Now it’s not just about how much one can party, but also about how much alcohol one can guzzle and how many types of drugs one can try at the endless revelry. 

Big cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune and holiday hotspots such as Goa and Manali are fast making a name for themselves as destinations for banned drugs such as hashish, LSD during the year-end celebrations. These cities host yearend as well as secret rave parties and events, where drug-induced revelry is the main attraction. Peddlers throng these gatherings to cater to the demand among the party animals. The demand for drugs in the country suddenly peaks around this period.

Hashish or Malana charas, is a popular drug in these parties because it comes from Himachal Pradesh and is therefore cheap.  Artificial drugs such as LSD and Meow Meow are supplied from Europe, the US and China.

While pubs, bars, hotels and restaurants are safe havens for drug  peddlers and their “business”, now they’ve found another easy market to sell their stuff. Emails and social networking sites such Facebook and Whatsapp are being heavily used to contact the drug sellers and probable buyers at unimaginable prices. 

The excuse of being close to the Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh border areas is no longer valid because these narcotics are being sold quite openly. And it is not that drugs are being supplied only to the rich. It is reaching anyone who can manage to buy it. So the peddlers are no longer targeting just a specific class of people, including children, say police. College students are easy targets both as buyers as well as sellers, because they can easily escape the police.

So even as the world celebrates the arrival of the new year, countless young lives may be attempting a journey into the dark and dangerous unknown the very same night.An unknown from where return isn’t a promise. We need to stop these youngsters before it’s too late.

            — FC