Hooked on a high

The growing danger of students, teens, resorting to performance enhancers that can have deadly consequence:

They come in attractive shades, intriguing shapes and look rather innocuous. They could be toffees, lozenges, chewing gum, fizzy drink in miniature bottles, fancy mouth sprays… just about anything fun and funky and even familiar, to entice the unwitting targets, most of them young, most of them unaware, most of them just gullible. But all eager to experience the promise of more, better, best.

No one openly claims the fancy sweets and drinks to be what they really are - performance enhancers, brain stimulants, tranquillisers - designed to give a momentary high, a rush of euphoria, spike in self esteem, an all conquering feeling. But the danger of this wilful myopia is that these performance enhancers, no matter the pretty packaging and name tags, are addictive, extremely dangerous and could even lead to life threatening consequence.

It is all too easy to understand why impressionable youth, especially the teens, eager to get off the grind and become a ‘super performer’ in school, on the field, even on the dance floor, would resort to these enhancers, and why their use has become so widespread. And a faulty, over academic oriented education system that allows its students little or no time for play and creative work, only adds to the minefield of reasons.

Many of those closely involved in youth affairs blame the education system, parents and pharmaceutical companies, especially the pharmaceutical companies for resorting to unethical methods of promoting these enhancers, while officials at the Poisons Information Centre blame it on the lack of proper regulations and control of the drug trade.

School children

Commenting on why school children especially those sitting public exams like the GCE O/L and GCE A/L exams are now increasingly becoming addicted to performance enhancers such as Cola Spray and chewing gum, Chairman National Dangerous Drugs Control Board, Dr Chamira Nalinga Samarasinghe, said unhesitatingly, “It’s our present education system that is largely to blame. While the end goal is to produce good academic results, it is not geared for the innovative and creative child,” and claimed that research studies carried out over the past two months, where they talked the youth (including school children) undergoing rehabilitation programmes for drug abuse, had revealed that many of students have very little time for play or recreational activities.

Case studies

An A/L student attending a leading Colombo school holding up an empty Cola spray bottle says, “I was unable to concentrate on my studies and afraid I wouldn’t be able to pass the exam. I’ve only used two of them so far but I don’t see any improvement in my school grades. In fact they have gone down”.

A young adult admitting he was looking for an ‘escape’ drug to withdraw from the grim realities of the world, however denies this. “It has helped me to do just that. But I’ll probably need to continue using it indefinitely till I find a newer drug”.

Raids uncovered

-Several varieties of toffees and sweets suspected to contain intoxicants and harmful to health sold at shops around schools in Kalutara, Payagala, Beruwala, Aluthgama and Dharga Town.

*Drug racket involving two suspects in Hatton selling prescribed drugs for mental patients. Seventy three tablets seized. Police said it intoxicates healthy persons and the tablets were sold at twice its usual price due to heavy demand.

*Last week several persons at Dematagoda nabbed selling Cola Spray.

*Police officer of the CID alleged to be involved in the racket.

*Youth nabbed with Cola spray bottle in the Fort

“They wake up at 5 in the morning, go to school, and then attend tuition classes and extracurricular classes. So they are very tense and unhappy. When they go home, many of these children have no mother to give them a meal. Many are left to their own devices while their parents are at work. They then become addicted to the computer, smart phone or stay glued to the television watching unsuitable films, as there is no parental supervision,” he said, adding, “Or take to drugs”.

As for what kind of drugs, he said traditionally it used to be stuff like heroin and cannabis, but the new trend now was Ecstacy, Ice, amphetamines, methamphetamines and cathinone. All of these are psychotropic drugs, man-made and used as stimulants.

Cola Spary

As for Cola Spray, which is brought into the country illegally and which is gaining popularity among school children, Dr. Samarasinghe said it did not contain narcotics, but added, “However, we are still doing tests to see if they have intoxicants that stimulate the child’s brain.”

He also said these enhancers usually triggered off mood changes, aggressiveness and hysteria. “Because school children are mentally fragile they can get hysteria,” explain that if a student, or even an adult has already taken cannabis or even sex stimulants, which are also becoming very popular these days, and thereafter imbibed a sugary syrup, it would enhance the effects of the drugs causing irritability and aggressiveness. That’s what happened to some school boys who were arrested the other day in the heart of Colombo,” he pointed out.

Mood swings

Solutions

So what is the solution to the increasing drug usage by children? An official of the Ministry of Education said Ministry was currently mulling over the question of giving more time for play during school hours. “It is now compulsory that children take part in at least ten minutes of physical exercise before going to their classrooms, so that it raises their oxygen levels and helps them think better. That way they may not need to look for drugs to perform better in their classrooms”.

Dr Samarasinghe said the NDCDB was establishing Committees in schools headed by the Principals and represented by teachers, prefects, the PIC closest to the school and parents. “We train the teachers every month on counselling with special attention to school drop outs,” he said, but claimed that the number of professional counsellors was still depressingly low.

Consultant Community Physician, Schools Unit, Family Health Bureau, Dr Ayesha Lokubalasuriya said there was an urgent need to provide counselling for school children and life skills education for school leavers.

He said the symptoms were long term, but curable if discovered in the initial stages. “Unfortunately these symptoms appear only after they have passed their twentieth birthday,” he said, urging parents to be more vigilant to their school going children who show behavioural changes and become aggressive and irritable for no reason.

Tip of the iceberg

A psychiatrist speaking on grounds of anonymity said school children by nature were adventurous and curious. He said: “They like experimenting with anything new. That includes any new drug that claims they could perform better in their exams. The problem is that once they test a drug they get a craving for more. If it offers them a way to do well in their highly competitive exams, they won’t hesitate taking them and demand for more. Cola Spray and the new chewing gum also believed to contain some intoxicants give are just the tip of the iceberg. Unless our authorities take immediate steps to control this flood of dangerous intoxicants, many more will follow in even more seductive and appealing colours and shapes”.

A paediatrician who refused to divulge his name said he was now seeing more school children with mood swings and behavioural changes. “Although we can’t directly link them to the stimulants now circulating in the market, is possible these symptoms are interlinked”.

Head of the National Poisons Information Centre, Dr Waruna Gunathilake admitted that some paediatricians had shared this opinion with him due to their concern about potential health risks teenagers faced.

He also warned that children were increasingly using drugs that have been medically prescribed for certain neurological reasons. “This is because pharmacies dispensing them are not insisting on a doctor’s prescription many patients who are regular users tell us they can get them without a prescription, since the pharmacists know them by sight.

That creates a dangerous precedent as the drug can fall into the wrong hands like school children who don’t have a neurological disorder”

He is of the view students, resort to these drugs probably because they believe these will help calm them down when they are about to sit an exam”.

Sexual stimulants

He alleged that even sexual stimulants or enhancers were now readily available without prescription at some pharmacies. “These too should only be given on a doctor’s prescription. But that is not happening. In fact there is such a huge demand for them from our youth, including school children in the higher classes who want to experiment with their body, it has become a big time business,” he said, insisting that the culprits be identified and the sale of these drugs controlled and regulated.

He recalled when popular brand of cough syrup had to be temporarily banned and is now only sold in government outlets, when it was alleged to have caused the death of some students who had ingested it. “As I recall, it was a time when there was a scarcity of heroin in the local market. Regular users who experienced withdrawal symptoms then began taking this syrup as it acted on the central nervous system and gave them a sense of tranquillity and calmed them down,” he said.

Dr. Gunathilake said the same thing applies to the Ecstacy drug, now available at most high end night clubs. “It also acts on the central nervous system causing euphoria and tranquillity,” he said, but warned that has deadly side effects, including serious cardiovascular and brain function problem, which the users are not aware of. “If a child were to ingest it accidentally, the results could be fatal,” he cautioned.