Two days after we had shifted to our new house, few women came to our house for an interview as my mother had put up an ad for a maid. As her second in command, I was told to keep an eye on everyone as maids usually tend to be quite clever. So while going through each of them, my eyes stopped at one contender. She was quite weak and would have been in her late 50’s. Her face spoke clearly of the grief.
I have decided to have a word with her and enquired why she wanted to work in this part of her age. I took her to my room and as soon I said “why you want to do work in this age? Do your children not do any work?” She just burst into tears, and the reason she told me took me by surprise as well. Her only son had ruined his life with drugs. He was an addict.
Even though it’s a sad story, but it’s not a new one by any means. According to a United Nations report, 4 Million Pakistanis are drug addicts and out of these, more than 50% age between 15 to 35 years. It also means 4 million families have been devastated by the use of this horrible addiction.
The main drug in Pakistan is heroine. The same UN survey states that 44 tons of heroine is consumed in Pakistan, which is three time more than USA. An alarming situation indeed.
The majority of individuals come in contact with drugs in their mid teen when their social interaction improves. Other reason may be lack of parental guidance or maybe cheap and easy availability of these drugs.
This addiction has not only ruined our social and moral values, but severely affects the health these addicts as well.
The addict not only becomes useless and a burden but also gets more prone to get involved in crimes. On medical side, a simple case study has shown that 40% drug users were HIV positive in 2011, due to excessive use of contaminated injections.
So actually, it was not about one mother. It’s about 4 million mothers of this country. This curse needs to stop. We need to play our part, rather than trying to hide our addicted acquaintances. We need to help them by taking them to treatment centers and educate our younger generation that it is totally wrong.
