Spotlight

Dr Binoy Barman

It has been said of late young folks are taking yaba to make them smart. But it is not clear how it will make them smart. When a person is addicted to the deadly drug, some changes appear ominously in his behaviour. He cannot sleep at night, he chatters aimlessly, he feels intense headache and little hunger, his vision and thought turn hazy (all of them result from the breakdown of nervous system and damage of neurons in brain) -- these are not the characteristics of any sound health whatsoever, rather these are the symptoms of vehement sickness. With taking yaba, people become physically and mentally sick. After being addicted, they behave abnormally, in cases crazily. They are transformed into lousy neurotic creatures, far away from human beings. Yaba robs them of smartness instead of making them smart.

It is a common tendency of the youths that they will aspire to be smart. But they often commit mistake in defining 'smartness'. They often take anything new to be a manifestation of smartness and modernity. They develop a passion for it and make it a fashion, without calculating the negative effects. It gives them sudden excitement in their life and they are gradually engrossed in it. The 'newness' of insidious experience spreads rapidly like plague through peer connections. It is however too late when they become aware of the lethal effects. The new thing has already eaten into their existence. They find no way out. The search for smartness thus ends in the blind alley of destruction.

This often happens when the young people are not guided properly. When the superiors, particularly parents and teachers, are away, the 'juniors' venture into their own decisions without much thought. They slip in the drug trap as there is nobody to warn them. Taking advantage of the situation, the mafia monsters with their persuasive words make the unsuspecting boys and girls their easy prey. So the gaping distance between parents and offspring, teachers and students, is also responsible to a great extent for the yaba menace in our society. The failure of the youths in making a good choice is the partial failure of the guardians in discharging their responsibilities.

Then, how to make them smart in proper sense of the term? How to help them in making a right choice? It may not be too difficult a task. Tell them to think critically, judging pros and cons of everything. Tell them to consider the consequence before something is taken in hand for exercise. All new things are not always safe; some are really dangerous. They must learn how to distinguish the good from the bad. They must realise that smartness is not in taking drug, but keeping the drug at bay. Smartness is cultivating virtuous traits, not the vices.

Frustration is identified as one of the main reasons for drug addiction among the youths today. Frustration is not any new phenomenon. It was, it is and it will be -- may be in new forms. The causes of frustration might be different but the pattern of fight against it is always same. Teach them how to ward off frustrations in the most positive way, with their strength of mind -- with determination and meditation. The drug is not a tool to fight against frustration; only it will throw them in greater darkness.

It is the responsibility of the guardians to help the adolescents in building good tastes and habits. They should be encouraged in reading books, watching good films and listening to good music. Their inclination to participate in constructive and creative activities should be boosted up. They should be led to the way of volunteering social welfares -- helping the sick, poor and illiterate. If high moral standards can be inculcated in them during their formative stage, they will refrain instinctively from indulging in what disturbs personal and social life. Yaba takes away the warmth of life and gives the cool touch of death. It steals light from life and fills it with unfathomable gloom. It makes a person devoid of all his pride and pleasure of living. Drug addiction is nothing but hell. Let's take care that all hell does not break loose. At the moment we need to launch a social movement against the 'unsmart' drug called yaba. Let's pledge to keep away from it.

The writer is an Assistant Professor, English, Bangladesh University. Email: binoy_barman@yahoo.com