The Male Drug Abusers in Metropolitan City: Socio-Demographic Profile, Health Profile, Mental Profile and Sexual Practices

Substance/Drug abuse is complex and multidimensional problem. It is one of the common problems in the metropolitan city. Drugs common in use are brown sugar, charas, ganja, sedative & hypnotics, LSD etc. It is descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at drug de-addiction centre of NGO which is situated at 3 sites of a metropolitan city. The study population comprised of male drug abusers enrolled at Drug De-addiction Centre of a NGO. Approximately 30% of total population catered by NGO was enrolled for the study by purposive method sampling. The mental health was assessed by DAST-20 scale. Maximum population was less than 40 years of age and was Muslim by religion. Most of the people were educated upto secondary level. Maximum participant were having drug addiction of brown sugar followed by charas. More than 50% of the participant were polysubstance users. Maximum participant start abusing the drug for the sake of self-enjoyment followed by to get hooked up. Maximum participant gave history of paid sex and were heterosexual in sexual orientation.