Night has fallen. A woman is preparing dinner on a tiny clay stove kept in the small courtyard of her one-room house with the raw food products that she bought from a nearby shop with the promise to pay later. She has no choice because she has to feed her two children, and the money that she earns after working as a housemaid is so little. While preparing for food, her whole body is trembling, not because she has any trouble while making food but because it’s almost time for her husband, who never once fulfilled his duties as a father and a husband, to come back home. Suddenly she hears hurried knocks on the door along with angry shouting of her husband. Her children, who were playing just now, stop playing and run towards a corner of their one and only room to hide from their so-called father. She is frightened too, but she has no choice but to open the door for her drunkard husband. As soon as she opens the door, disgusting smell of alcohol spreads in their small house and his violent husband, who is not himself in the intoxication of alcohol, starts beating her out of the blue. She cries and begs for mercy but can’t free herself from the beating. After getting satisfied with his cowardly bravery, he lies down on his cot. The children run crying towards their mother, who is crying quietly in pain, but the husband doesn’t care about them. After an hour or so, he starts vomiting and makes his family’s hell like lives even worse.
In the morning, he goes out to work and repeats the same process when he returns in the evening. He doesn’t care for his family. He doesn’t provide for them even if they are to die. The only thing he cares for is alcohol and other drugs he spends his hard-earned money on. He can easily buy illicit drugs like opium, morphine etc. from a house in his neighbourhood like many of his other friends. This is what’s happening in many homes. This is the story of many wives and children who are living hell-like lives because of their druggy husbands and fathers and the people who illicitly sell drugs like vegetables. It hurts to hear such stories. It hurts when precious sons of parents keep dying because of consuming drugs. Shouldn’t it be stopped? Shouldn’t there be thorough investigations and strict actions on such houses and drug paddlers who ruin others’ lives just for money? There should be and if it’s happening then it doesn’t seem to stop lives from perishing.
June 26, 2023 is celebrated as International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking every year. This day exists to let us know that every day should be spent on preventing drug abuse and drugs’ illicit trafficking. It’s evident that just one day isn’t enough to uproot drugs because these have deeply settled down in our society’s roots. The strongest pesticides and the sharpest weeding machines are needed to kill and pluck these weeds out.
The Theme of International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking 2023
This year’s theme of International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking is “People first: stop stigma and discrimination, strengthen prevention.” In other words, it means that Hate Intoxicants, Not Druggies. It’s difficult to like a person who makes himself and the others suffer because of his drug addiction but if we think about druggies, they are also victims of drugs. If they are provided guidance and opportunities of rehabilitation, they can shun drugs. On the other hand, if they are just hated and discriminated, they may not even think about shunning drugs without no one persuading or guiding them to do so. This is why Drug re-habilitation centres exist to motivate and strengthen druggies to leave drugs. Drug prevention is important, not hate with those who are victims of drugs.
*Awareness since Childhood can work as a powerful weapon against Drugs *
As the saying goes “you reap what you sow”, children need right guidance from the beginning to turn into strong and good human beings who don’t fall in the trap of drugs. If they are made aware of the adverse effects of drugs and are educated against drug abuse, there is a very slim chance of them becoming druggies when they grow up. Such educated children even educate others against drugs and pave the way for a healthy and drug-free society that actually functions and plays a key role in a nation’s development.
Strict Actions on Illegal Drug Sellers are Imperative to Vanish Drugs
If people are able to get their hands on illicit drugs easily, it means illicit trafficking of drugs is going on without any fear of law and order. Such people should be reined in and strictly punished in order to encourage people to abide by law. The web of illicit trafficking of drugs isn’t small one. It’s spread on global level and the people who carry out its tasks are not small dealers either. They supervise small drug sellers who help them transfer, stock and sell drugs illegally. They do it for money and for living luxurious lives, but the ones who buy and consume drugs and their families have to suffer from the consequences. They pay for drugs not with just money, but also with their lives, which never come back once they are gone. If there is any meaning behind International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, such trafficking should be wiped out forever before it’s too late to save lives from grip of drugs
Let’s All Pledge Against Drug Abuse
Drugs exist because there are people who want them and consume them. What if there is no buyer of drugs? The drugs will vanish automatically, won’t they? On individual level and together, we all should pledge to never consume and buy drugs to create a better world. Make sure to follow the pledge and you will see, such crucial step from everyone will result in closing drugs’ chapter forever.
