Our September 2001 cover

The furore around the Rahul Mahajan case might be treated as the media's response to a typical news storyline-the well-known in trouble-but I believe it has also served to take the lid off the insidious cocaine culture that has gained ground in India. It was about time.

In recent years I have found that the social acceptability of cocaine has become as pervasive and perverse as the use of the drug itself. India's cocaine culture begins with the use of the word 'recreational' for what is essentially a narcotic and ends up in lines on a party table in the place where the vintage wine or the single malt used to be.

From being the drug of choice of an artistic fringe in the West, cocaine has become a phenomenon for the well heeled all over the world and is now considered cool. It has become the aspirational lifestyle accessory-much like an SUV-of those with money to burn. That demographic has changed considerably in the past decade. Today the cocaine user is not just the widely-travelled fashion designer, industrialist or yuppie couple. It could be anyone between 25 and 35 with spare cash looking for a stress-buster or the instant gratification of the quick high. It could be a high-profile son like Mahajan Junior or the call centre employee next door.

According to some estimates, the number of cocaine users in India has gone up 300-400 per cent. The worrying new trend is that the age when the young begin experimenting with 'party' drugs has dropped to 16 and 17.

Cocaine in itself is not lethal but it is definitely addictive. It acts as an entry drug which then starts a predictable downward spiral: anti-social behaviour and the search for a larger high and the use of harder drugs like heroin.

Managing Editor Dilip Bobb put together this week's cover story on the growing use of cocaine in India along with our reporters across the metros. We also track the Mahajan case but that I believe is merely symptomatic of a larger phenomenon spreading across our cities.

This is the flip side of the affluence that India now enjoys as the result of its economic boom. Parents buy their children the latest toys but do not give them what they need most-time and attention. There is pressure on the wage earner in a cut-throat job market to bring home more money because conspicuous consumption is the norm. In this situation and surrounded by a culture which glamorises drug use, it is easy for many to believe drugs have an answer. If you have the cash and know the right people, the drugs will come to your doorstep.

We have seen the growth of the drug menace in the US; what started out amongst a niche group has spread to become a scourge of a nation. That is the part of globalisation we most certainly don't want.

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