How drug addiction in Punjab is lowering sex drives and pushing up the divorce rate
Pubjab's drug-addict youngsters just can't get no satisfaction.
Areas of the state particularly notorious for drug consumption have been witnessing a mercurial rise in the number of divorces, and experts put this trend down to rampant abuse of methamphetamines and hallucinogens, among other drugs.
Chandigarh-based sexologist Dr Ambrish Singal confirms as much. "Dependence on drugs is lowering the sex drive of Punjab's youths.The condition is no different in neighbouring Haryana and Chandigarh," he explains before adding on an ominous note: "The menace of drug addiction is eating up the youth."
Areas notorious for drug consumption have been witnessing a mercurial rise in the number of divorces (File photo)
He explains that drugs bring about a drop in testosterone and estrogen - the hormones essential to a healthy sex drive.
In a report released in 2010-11, the Punjab government cited a study conducted by Amritsar's Guru Nanak Dev University to conclude that at least 73.5 per cent of the state's youths aged between 16 and 35 years were confirmed drug addicts.
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Most of the drugs that enter Punjab are smuggled from Afghanistan through Pakistan.
Predictably, districts bordering Pakistan - namely, Ferozpur, Fazilka, Tarn Taran, Amritsar, Pathankot and Gurdaspur – are where drugs are known to have the strongest hold. It is in the same areas that divorce rates have shot up as well.
"Families of known drug addicts face rejection every time they try to find a match for them. Some men, however, get married without disclosing their addiction.Such marriages usually end in separation," says a Ferozpur resident.
"Some marriages ended within a couple of months," he adds. Dera Baba MLA Nanak Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa was in for a shock recently while on a visit to villages in his constituency.
"Nearly 60 per cent of the couples whose marriage he had attended barely two months ago were no longer together," he told Mail Today.
Youngsters are wary of disclosing their flagging libido to their families before marriage, he adds.
Singal says it upsets him to see the changing fortunes of Punjab's men, "once famous for vitality and good health".
"All we see now are pale faces. Earlier, only middle-aged men would visit sexologists. Now, even newly-weds do, in large numbers," he adds.
As a result, even large cities like Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ludhiana and Chandigarh are dotted with signboards of sex clinics.
