REPORTS AND FACTS
• According to AIIMS report Nearly 18 lakh adults and 4.6 lakh children fall in the badly addicted category in India.. According to this report, India has nearly 12.6 lakh users in this category, of which one-third are in the harmful or dependent category.
• The prevalence rate of alcohol consumption is 38.6 % in India. The most commonly used alcoholic beverages are beer, wine, whiskey, rum, vodka, gin and brandy and locally brewed beverages like arrack and toddy.
• According to the National Survey on Extent and Pattern of Substance Use in India in 2019, about 2.1% of the country’s population (2.26 crore individuals) uses opioids which include opium (or its variants like poppy husk known as doda/phukki), heroin, and pharmaceutical opioids.
• The national survey of 2019 also showed that about 2.8% of Indians aged 10-75 years (3.1 crore individuals) were using cannabis as bhang, ganja and charas. 72 lakh (0.66%) people have an addiction to cannabis.
• But what is alarming is the number of suicides due to drug abuse and alcohol addiction has more than doubled in the last decade in India. In the year 2010, 3,343 cases of suicides were reported, and the number increased to 7,860 suicides in 2019.