The faces of our young silently entreat us to rescue them from the menace
ISLAMABAD: I know not how other cities are faring but I can speak for certain about the capital of which I used to be a proud citizen. In universities, it is no surprise to find a good lot of students falling prey to substance abuse, the most common of which is hash.
This narcotic maybe indigenous to our region but since when did it become a fad in the ostensibly privileged and purportedly educated stratum of our society? First World problems via transnational and diasporic communities have made their way into our culture and now, a dark cloud of passive hash smoke wafts about our institutions.
The tragedy of the whole affair is when such reprehensible practices are tolerated with levity and the youth, instead of participating in healthy recreational pastimes, are seen preoccupied rolling what is known in street slang, a ‘joint’. We can estimate a vague yet whopping figure just by calculating the gross sales of rolling papers stocked on the shelves of every corner shop, not to mention the big stores.
Is it not clear as to what purpose these roll-on papers are being used for? Are we so vulnerable as to buy every vice the West propagates through its films and music? Such a plight of the nation calls for an immediate crackdown against drug pushers to eliminate both, the supply and demand for narcotics. If one perpetrator is brought to the books, he points out a dozen others who are indulging in the same vile practice with impunity. The faces of our young silently entreat us to rescue them from the menace. We must learn to view the decadence of the white man like a bystander and encourage art and culture that loosens the noose of oblivion around our necks.
SM Hassan Raza
Published in The Express Tribune, February 4th, 2017.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
