Marijuana a hit among Delhi's young population

Clinical Psychologists in the country are reporting a rise in the number of patients coming to them for rehabilitation from drug and substance abuse mainly marijuana. Doctors allege that the youth in the national Capital is inclining towards the drug-abuse and thus an increased number of students are coming up with behavioral problems caused due to these drugs.

"It is serious concern that the use of Marijuana has increased markedly in last few years among the students in both school and colleges affecting the academic and psychosocial health of the students. It is interesting to note that students who use marijuana do not think that it is harming them and most of the students are brought by the family members with symptoms of psychosis ( hallucination, delusion, disorganised behavior and poor motivation )," said Dr Nand Kumar, Professor of Psychiatry, AIIMS.

"It is a well-established fact that marijuana can precipitate psychosis. However, most of the students try to justify that even the God also used to take and it is legalised in several countries," he said.

A study collectively done by a group of foreign universities and substance research centre showed that students consuming marijuana tend to achieve lower GPAs than students who were only consuming alcohol or nothing at all.