SOCIETY

Mumbai street children getting addicted to glue, petrol

     Mumbai: The financial capital of the country is known for its brightness, stardom and progressive work culture but it has many dark shades also as poverty and abandonment has forced thousands of street children in the city into cheap addiction with the homeless children getting addicted to drink petrol, photocopier solution and sniff glue. The main reason behind the addiction, they say, is their emotional instability, lack of education and an alarmingly easy and unchecked availability of these drug substitutes. "Most of them have come from troubled homes. They have run away from home in the interior parts of the country and they have come to Mumbai. I would say about 70 per cent of the children who are either rag pickers or who work at the railway station are into this glue sniffing," said Yusuf Merchant, President of Drug Abuse Information, Rehabilitation and Research Centre. The children, many as young as seven, say they take to the contrabands to often due to peer pressure, or to fight off hunger and memories of their family. "Its addictive. I take it because I feel nice...I feel drowsy when I take it.... The other boys do it, so even I started it," said Gopal Soni, a street child who has taken to glue sniffing. "My father threw me out of my house because I did not go to school. So I ran away and came here," said Sagar, another addict. Their modus operandi is simple. They pour the glue onto a piece of cloth, which they roll up and sniff. Some choose to enhance the pleasure by putting it in their mouths. After sniffing glue they start feeling dizzy, light-headed and drowsy. The smell of glue gives them a feeling of pleasure as it distorts the senses. Recent reports say around 8 to 10 street children die every month due to drug abuse in the country's most happening city where blatant display of wealth go hand in hand with extreme poverty. Those lucky enough to survive end up with severe long-term and often irreversible disorders including burned nose membranes, perforation of the gallbladder, bone marrow destruction, blindness and even damage to the brain. Experts say their vast number and constant movement -- most of these children are on the run and make a move as soon as spotted by police or volunteers, make it difficult to determine their exact number but estimate that at least 100,000 are either already addicted or at risk.
-April 16, 2005

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