Govt to aid of women addicts

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 28

Punjab’s war against drugs has now shifted to women addicts. The Special Task Force (STF) of the Punjab Police has started reaching out to those in de-addiction centres, at the same time collaborating with women drug survivors for motivational therapy.

Though the exact number of women addicts in Punjab is yet to be ascertained, experts, citing a survey by AIIMS in 2014, put their number at 2,502. The figure may be much higher, believe experts.

In a first such endeavour, the STF along with Navkiran de-addiction centre in Kapurthala, which is a Government of India-run clinic, and The Global Fund, has picked 15 women drug survivors from Punjab and 15 from other parts of the country for a two-day workshop in Kapurthala on May 29 and 30. They will narrate their stories and motivate others to kick the habit.

Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta had at a meeting last week called for a new push against drug abuse. ADGP Gurpreet Deo, the first women officer to head the STF, said the number of woman addicts was not too high. Dr Sandeep Bhola of the Navkiran centre said Kapurthala had been picked for a pilot project on “harm reduction” of drugs and prevention of HIV/AIDS through injected drug use.

He said the workshop would provide a rare chance to addicts to learn from the success stories of others.

“Also, government representatives would get a better insight into the issue.” 

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