Drugs & Substance Abuse Problems

Drug and Substance abuse culture is a serious problem acquiring an epidemic forms and proportion engulfing the younger generation all over the world due to various psychological, social, cultural, economic and political factors. The unprecedented spurt of drug production, consumption and trafficking in many parts of the globe has now become a well-organised billion dollar ?business?. To cope with these multidimensional problems arising out of this drug abuse culture the government has evolved several demand and supply reduction strategies and programmes within the national and international legal framework. All these strategies attempted at various levels have impacted the problems in varying degrees in the proliferation and control in different areas like prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, production, consumption and trafficking. The prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, production, consumption and trafficking. The relationship between HIV/AIDS and the intervenous drug use is not uncommon now. moreover, emerging problems of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking are now serious issues which warrant urgent attention and policy directions. Unfortunately, in spite of all the mechanisms developed so far they could not check totally the profileration due to many inherent weaknesses in many of these control strategies. The area of fertile for serious academic discourse both in terms of theory and practices in not many of these control strategies. The area is fertile for serious academic discourse both in terms of theory and practice in not only understanding the problems in their entirety but also in evolving appropriate demand and supply reduction mechanisms. This pioneering voume consisting of sixteen research articles addresses some of these problems. The complexity of the problem has been analysed from an inter-disciplinary approach. The papers are written by well-known social scientists, researchers and enforcement persons.

Madan C. Paul (b. 1955) graduated with Economics Honours in 1974. He is M.A., M. Phill and Ph.D. in Sociology with interdisciplinary perspective from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Since 1986, he is on the Faculty of Group of Adult Education, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was also the NSS Programme Coordinator of the University (1988-1992). He has wide experience and is actively involved in research, extension and teaching. His research interests are in literacy and slum dwellers, education and social change, population and family life education, youth and drug abuse, the areas in which he several publications in the form of research articles and books. He was associated with four international projects: (i) Indo-Dutch Project on MNC. It was an IMWOO (Netherlands) Research Programme on Development Alternatives and ICSSR (India) in 1982; (ii) Women in Higher Education in Latin American and Asian countries, McGill University, Montreal (Canada) in 1983; (iii) Women and Dowry Phenomenon: Study of Dhaka (Bangladesh) and India, Commonwealth Secretariat (London) in 1987; (iv) Economic and Social Transformations connected with International Drug Problems, UNESCO-MOST Project, 1999 (Member Secretary, Third International Conference of UNESCO-MOST at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi). He has authored/edited seven books including Drugs, Youth and Society (1996). At present he is Director, Group of Adult Education, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.