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World Mental Health Day is around the corner but a cursory look at Indian news channels and social media will probably be enough to gauge how far we are from having a proper discourse on mental health. After the politicised death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, like many others, I wondered if the mainstream was finally prepared to engage in a discourse regarding mental health and how we as a society aren’t equipped with necessary resources. The reality was quite the opposite, recently actress Kangana Ranaut claimed in a tweet, “Repeat after me, depression is a consequence of drug abuse.” Not only is the tweet misinformed and irresponsible, but it also stigmatises both depression and drug addiction.
Both depression and drug addiction are serious illnesses that can alter a person’s well-being. The American Psychiatric Association defines Depression as “a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home.”According to the National Mental Health Survey of 2015 -16, one in twenty people suffer from depression in India.
The War on Drugs led by the US in the late 70s forever altered the perception of drugs, even those like marijuana that have been researched to have medicinal benefits. The trickle-down effect, of course, was the othering of drug users, making examples out of them, and talking about them as seemingly immoral individuals. Ranaut’s tweet is a reflection of this perception that says “classy” people (or not ‘immoral’) don’t indulge in such habits. The questions that one forgets to raise in such a skewed analysis of drug use and abuse is that drugs are used for multiple reasons that range from medicinal use, recreational use, and along this spectrum are those that use it as a way to cope or those with severe addiction. Whatever the reason may be, there needs to be a larger and more nuanced conversation around drugs. Filmmaker Ronny Sen in the Akademi Mag raises concerns regarding the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, “Drugs and addiction are fundamentally intertwined, and yet the word ‘addiction’ does not appear in the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (1985) of India. The NDPS Act is our primary piece of parliamentary legislature around drug use and pertains to the possession, sale, purchase, production and use of narcotic or psychotropic substances. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) was established under the Act in 1986 and was designed to both enforce the NDPS and also uphold India’s commitments to global anti-drug conventions and treaties. The NDPS Act does make provisions for the care, attention, and legal rights of addicts, but there are no systems in place by which to enable this; more fundamentally, since the Act does not define what addiction is, how can it successfully treat addicts? Furthermore, it is not able to successfully differentiate between a recreational drug user and an addict.”
We also need to understand that giving up on drugs is not a linear trajectory, there may be withdrawal symptoms. The American Addiction Center’s website says, “Continued abuse of drugs or alcohol interferes with the motivation and reward chemistry and circuitry, resulting in drug cravings and dependence. Detoxing from one substance may result in different withdrawal symptoms and health risks that evolve over varying time frames when compared with another type of drug. With different types of substances, some withdrawal symptoms can be uncomfortable yet seldom immediately dangerous, while others may be very severe and potentially life-threatening.” Instead of vilifying drug users, we need to expand our understanding of drug use, drug abuse and addiction.
While it seems quite easy to tweet callously from behind a screen, the negative consequences of such statements cannot be ignored. The dinner table conversations all across India have changed to drugs, alcohol, depression, and suicide, but, unfortunately, they are a repetition of what blares through the TV screen day in and day out. Statements like “used to get happiness from little things in life” invalidate mental health issues and only reiterate our flawed understanding of the same.
As someone who has struggled with mental health issues for a major part of my life, I only found the courage to seek professional help during my final year of college. When I told my friends from school about it, they were all confused and said: “but we were there in school with you, you looked happy and fine.” It’s exasperating to hear similar statements on my grandmother’s and mother’s TV screens daily because it only works towards intensification of this ill-informed belief.
The American Psychiatry Association lists out certain factors that may play a causal role when it comes to Depression, but nowhere does it enlist substance or drug abuse. A person coping with Depression may tend to resort to using of substances but to invalidate the struggles of either only pushes people further into the margins, making them unable to ask for help and seek assistance. As important as it is to check in with your loved ones and look for signs, it is also crucial to understand that not everyone with mental health issues functions in the same way. Whatever may be the case, the need of the hour is a nuanced conversation based on facts from verified sources.
If you or anyone you know is dealing with a mental health crisis or drug addiction, we request you to direct them to a known professional. Here are some resources that might help:
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