Prevalance Of Substance Abuse Among Street Children In West Bengal, India

Abstract

The term substance abuse implies on the use of tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, glue, opioids, gasoline and legal or illegal substances excessively or in a wrong way. The most commonly used substances are inhalants while they are volatile in nature i.e. volatile substances (VS). The most vulnerable groups are the street children aged between 5-15yrs. in India. Children from broken family, without caregiver, of extreme poverty, food insecurity, often ended up on street life and indulged into these types of addiction. Initially the main cause has always been the appetite. Some studies have identified the substance abuse as remedy for hunger pain. Substance abuse is one of the main reasons to claim lives on the streets of India. Recent studies have shown that out of all inhalants are mostly in trend as those are inexpensive and easy to obtain and legally available in any market. These types of substance abuse are widely spread all over the India, especially in West Bengal. The study aims at prevalence of substance abuse among the street children of West Bengal, India. The literature review is based on about 24 journal articles and some other organizational articles etc. After proper screening of the sources, analysis has done and reviewed to draw findings and discussion for the study. Extensive work and vigorous studies are required to get a clear picture about the prevalence of substance abuse in street children in West Bengal, India as the studies are limited in this area of research.