Drug abuse is a severecommunal problem that is growing and an ever increasing number of youth becoming addicted by it. The smuggling and illegal trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances into India have led to drug addiction amongample section of the community, particularly the adolescents has assumed serious and alarming magnitudes in the recent years. Drugs have numerous impacts as it may control the body and mind of individual consumers, the drug crop and drug cartels may control farmers, illicit trafficking and related crime may control communities thus undermining sustainable human development. Drugs affect all sectors of society; in particular, the young people.1Physically the most major impact of drug abuse is on the communication system of the human brain, which inevitably affects every other aspect of life of the person addicted. They disturb
the ways in which nerve cells send, process and receive information.In light of this statutory control over narcotic drugs are exercised in form of international as well as national regulations.
Defining Drug Abuse
According to the plain dictionary meaning drug abuse means “the habitual taking of illegal drugs”2. In other words it refers to the habit of regular intake of illegal drugs characterized by misuse of drugs. There is a thin-line of difference between Drug abuse and addiction. In case of drug abuse, the person may or may not be addicted to these harmful drugs. However, in case of drug addiction, the person is severely addicted to these drugs. Thus, drug abuse may often lead to drug addiction.3 The World Health Organization refers drug abuse as, “Substance abuse”that refers to the harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs. Such Psychoactive substance use leads to dependence syndrome – a cluster of behavioral, cognitive, and physiological phenomena that develop after repeated substance use and that typically include a strong desire to take
the drug, difficulties in controlling its use, persisting in its use despite harmful consequences, a higher priority given to drug use than to other activities and obligations, increased tolerance, and sometimes a physical withdrawal state.4
