A young man 24-year-old comes to Mohalla Pir Bokhari located few yards away from the City Police Station, carrying a suit of cotton in his hand.

“I want to sell it in exchange for a few tokens (sic) of heroin”, he proclaims before the women and men sitting in front of their houses.

A woman buys the suit and gives three tiny packets of the most powerful and most dangerous drug made from morphing.

Thus the young man sells the suit whose price is at least six hundred rupees in the market at a meagre amount of seventy five rupees, as the price of one sachet of heroin is Rs25 and that tiny packet only contains few particles of the most fatal drug.

“I’m sure he has stolen the suit from somewhere perhaps from his own home because he did not have money to buy the drug”, one of the sellers tells Dawn.

The menace of drug-addiction in Chakwal is fast increasing like the rest of the districts in the country.

The data regarding drug abuse in Pakistan presents a highly stunning and shocking picture. According to a report published in the media more than 8.1 million people are drug-addicts in Pakistan and more harrowing revelation is that 50,000 people fall in the addicts’ list every year. Having a common border with Afghanistan — the largest opium producer — Pakistan is more vulnerable to the abuse and according to the officials of Anti Narcotics Force (ANF), Pakistan has the highest number of drug users.

Charas (Cannabis) remains the largest consumed drug not only in Pakistan but also in the world, while heroin remains the most fatal drug.

“Heroin, cocaine and other drugs continue to kill around 200,000 people a year, shattering families and bringing misery to thousands of other people, insecurity and the spread of HIV,” director Yury Fedotov revealed, while disclosing the 2012 World Drug Report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), a couple of months ago.

The situation of drug abuse in the country can be assessed after having a glance at drug users in a small district like Chakwal.

Albeit Mohalla Pir Bokhari is known by the name of the saint but in reality its name signifies as the ‘hub of drug sellers and drug addicts.’ Located at Pinwal Road, behind another locality (where the sale of hooch has made the inhabitants rich in a short span), every house of Mohalla Pir Bokhari is dependant on a sole source of income that is heroin.

The residents of this rough and shabby locality were living below the poverty line, few years ago but as they got involved in the deadly business of drug selling, they can be seen now enjoying ice creams in the evening, sitting at the doorsteps of their houses.

Most sellers are women, as they cannot be arrested and frisked easily by the police.

As one exits from this locality, there is a graveyard — the most beloved spot for addicts. In the early morning, hosts of drug addicts can be seen injecting heroin in their veins, using old syringes and inhaling it via cigarettes.

“I have fallen in the mire of drug addiction due to my friends”, recalls Matloob Hussain 48.

“I want to return to a normal life but now it seems impossible for me”, he continues.

Malik Zaffar Iqbal who was a reader for a Session Judge a decade ago and used to write a regular column for a local newspaper under the caption of “Pas-e-Parda” (Behind the curtain) by the name of ZIM, also yearns for a normal life but finds it difficult.

“I have been left shocked by the sudden death of my wife and to mitigate the sorrow caused by her demise, I took shelter in drugs”, he says with a heavy heart.

According to the drug addicts, there are three to four hundred persons who use heroin sitting in the graveyard daily.

“Most of the victims are those who started using heroin to enhance their sexual power but later they were mired in the menace in such a way that now they do not see any outlet”, he tells.

After taking a dose of heroin in the early morning, the drug addicts spread out in the city for the purpose of begging. They sleep in deserted places, particularly around shrines.

Thoha Bahadur village is the major hub of drugs from where it is supplied to the whole district. Heroin is sold at the rate of 350 rupees per gram in Chakwal, which means Rs350,000 per kg.

According to an estimated date more than 100,000 people in the district are caught in the menace of drug addiction and more than 2,000 people fall in the mire of drug-addiction every year. Most of them use Charas.

The menace of drug addiction is on the rise, while state remains silent on the issue for taking pragmatic steps for its eradication.

“Frustration and unemployment are the major causes of drug addiction. The need of the hour is that media, parents and society should join hands to eradicate this curse”, opines Sajjad Hussain, who teaches English at Government Post Graduate College, Chakwal.

He added that rehabilitation centres should be built, where the addicts should be given free treatment.

Station House Officer of City Police Station Zulfiqar Bazeed is of the view that those families of Mohalla Pir Bokhari are involved in the deadly business of drug selling are also drug addicts.

“We are taking action against them and we have arrested many drug sellers and also recovered drugs from their custody”, he maintains.

The increasing availability of drugs that too at cheap prices, fast changing social circumstances of society, which put heavy demands on the individuals and to flee from those demands youngsters find a false solution offered through drugs, unemployment, frustration, incompetence of security forces and lack of drug education and awareness are the factor, which are boosting the menace to an appalling proportion.

The state and society must join hands to eradicate the menace of drug abuse for a better Pakistan.