Cabinet Minister Kyrmen Shylla has urged youth not to succumb to peer pressure and fall into the trap of substance abuse like drugs.
Speaking at the launch of the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan Campaign held in Lad Rymbai Dongwah yesterday, the minister said, “Don’t be curious about how it feels to try drugs, be curious about things that will benefit your future and not things that will spoil your life.”
The minister also lauded the resilience of S. Lamare, who battled addiction and overcame it and praised the Anti Narcotics Force and the police for their efforts in their war against drug smuggling.
Senior State Coordinator of the campaign, Ananya Majumder spoke about the campaign and said besides awareness programme focusing on higher education institutions and schools as well as reaching out into the communities and identifying vulnerable population and communities the campaign also focus on counseling and treatment facilities in hospital and rehabilitation centers and capacity building programmes by reaching out with the master volunteers and work with the youth and training them to know about the dangerous effect of substance use.
East Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner Abhilash Baranwal said that people take drugs to cope with difficult life situations and also out of curiosity and peer pressure. “Whatever might be the situations, drugs will never be the solution”, he said, while appealing to the students and youth to say no to drugs no matter what situation they are in.
During in the programme, the Minister and the Deputy Commissioner also felicitated Lamare a recovered drug addict and the Anti Narcotic Task Force.
A bike rally from Lad Rymbai to raise awareness on the negative impact of drug use was also conducted.
