According to Aizawl Civil Hospital, Casualty department record, as many as 16 youths including 8 females and 8 males have died in Mizoram from January till date.
But during the months of April and May no one died due to over dose, the source said.
The record maintained that those victims were teenagers studying in higher secondary schools and colleges.
These youths mostly used drugs like Pepe/Pacitane etc .
It is worth mentioning here that Kumar Kishore, Project Co-ordinator, UNDOC Regional Office for South Asia had said last month that though heroin was still available in Mizoram, there was an increase in injecting prescription drugs such as, Dextropropoxyphene (proxyvon/parvon-spas etc), which come in from the mainland of Assam along the Silchar route.
The Project Co-ordinator, UNDOC Regional Office for South Asia had also said that Mizoram shares an international border with Bangladesh and Myanmar and informal trade takes place between people of these countries and because of its geographical location, some of the challenges faced by the state include, trafficking of drugs, sex, trade, trafficking of women and smuggling of goods.
“Following the introduction of heroin the 1970s drug abuse among the local youth took a new turn in Mizoram. Within ten years time, heroin smoking a nontraditional form of opiate use replaced the age old tradition of cannabis. Injecting heroin (locally known as ‘No 4) soon took over until the late 90’s. Drug abuse is now a major problem among the youth, with the initial drug of abuse being heroin,” Kumar Kishore had pointed out.
He had then said although traditionally betel nut, tobacco, cannabis and country liquor were the common intoxicants, a shift from traditional usage to non-traditional forms of use of drugs such as heroin smoking and injecting and injecting dextropropoxyphene (available in capsule form, the powder of which is dissolved in water and injected after filtering it through a cotton wad), took place during the 1970s to early 1980s. “Subsequently, it was observed that a considerable proportion of the local youth in Mizoram started using drugs by injecting first rather than gradually switching form other substance abuse such as smoking cannabis of talking codeine containing cough syrup,” he had added.
Further, Kishore had cited the report of the Mizoram State AIDS Control Society Revalidation, March 2013 which said there are about 10,750 regular ‘injecting drugs users’ in Mizoram.
“Some of commonly used drugs are heroin, proxyvon/ Parvonspas, cough syrups, ganja, nitrozepam, volatiles (dendrites, petrol etc) of late amphetamines etc,” he had reiterated.
The Project Co-ordinator, UNDOC Regional Office for South Asia had then said Mizoram is increasingly becoming a trafficking, transitioning and consumption point as the extensive road connections facilitate transportation of heroine and ephedrine.
“Mizoram has witnessed a new development in drug trafficking in the new millennium. During 2001-2002, the Excise & narcotics Dept, Government of Mizoram, seized more than 100 tablets of amphetamines type stimulus (ATS),” Kumar Kishore had stated.