The Deadly Pyramid Scheme of Synthetic Heroin in India’s Mountains | Trouble in Paradise

spectacular snowy peaks and thrilling adventure sports himachal is a place many call the switzerland of india and before the pandemic hit this state in north india saw 17 million tourists annually [Music] in the midst of a lockdown i left the city and moved back to a village here to be with my family [Music] this is my cousin this is how my family bonds we do near death activities my hometown b billing is one of the highest takeoff points for paragliding in the world from up here it's really a bird's eye view but beyond this natural beauty lurks a dark truth that of a growing opioid crisis [Music] i'm in this pine forest in south himachal and this is one of the areas which is known by the local substance users as go-to place it's pretty it's secluded and sort of hidden away from the rest of the city that's why i'm meeting god over here hello korov has had his struggles with heroin addiction and [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] kids [Music] [Music] reports of similar overdose deaths are very common in local newspapers while himachal has always had a cannabis positive attitude synthetic opioids like chitta which is a form of heroin are a different beast altogether just like the other drugs coming from the opium poppy plant synthetic heroin can have significant effects on the body ranging from pain relief and euphoria to slow breathing or overuse related death i recently learned that india has thrice the global average when it comes to the consumption of illegal opioids and the per person used in himachal shockingly is more than double the national average while some overdose deaths come to light several go unreported the crisis has also affected me personally i recently lost a close family member i grew up with to an overdose death we knew about him for two years actually but despite knowing talking to him we couldn't get him the kind of mental health support that he needed or rehabilitation that he needed problem [Music] [Music] exclusive most of himachal depends on farming for a living and our per capita income is pretty low about 235 dollars per month to know how a drug costing hundred dollars per gram has become so rampant here i'm meeting vijay kumar who runs an ngo called gunjan he's been tracking the history of synthetic heroin in north india for the past decade opioids foreign a state where opioid uses five times the national average for over a decade punjab has been the corridor for opioids to enter north india from neighboring pakistan and afghanistan [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] while himachal is a hot spot for family vacations other tourists have been known to enjoy more than just the famous dumplings here long famous for its vast and high quality bead cultivation many national and international tourists come to himachal for cannabis related products i grew up in here but like uh 1991 some i think there's a lot of no indian tourists coming the western mostly of westerns and israelis and other people wore people coming out of north india so that times like lots of things is going on i think so yeah yeah because they're from coming to go out we're here doing like season times you know like summer time in the summer times the himachal coming [Music] the spiritual leader dalai lama lives in these mountains so people come here seeking a slice of tibetan culture and the tranquility that comes with rural mountain life [Music] but close to where the dalai lama lives is the dharamshala jail where three-fourths of the people have been imprisoned in drug-related acts [Music] since 2020 the state police foreign because of the high consumption of chitta in this area there's been a steady rise of retailers of the drug i'm meeting ashok ratan one of the police officers who's been trying to cut off the supply chain in himachal pradesh live apart from police i think the whole administration or the our cabinet are ministers also he's like the biggest problem in much buddhist right now is drug abuse and in that also the major portion in the last two three years has been dominated by the consumption of heroin which area are we going to actually this is just near near to the pathan court around 100 metres from here it's pathanko punjab had become the center of india's epidemic of opioid users but the villages in himachal that border punjab are the ones that are most notorious for majority [Music] i think uh in shortest possible time to make such amount of money everyone is in dutch every main household is indulgent [Music] three and four foreign building this house is actually of a local heroin kingpin who has now been arrested i met up with his wife to ask her how his arrest has affected life in chennai [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] but if i'm a drug peddler or even a supplier for that matter is it more profitable for me to actually do heroin business in my person according to my experience here because uh 250 grams of urine if you say there is a hypothetical situation that you are caught with a 250 grams of heroin or with 1 kg of cholesterol the profitability margin is 10 times more in 250 grams of urine because it's more expensive and it's quite easy for you to hide the drugs when the police party rates you the cops in these border regions have recently seized assets worth more than 1.6 million dollars from drug trades and they're gg [Music] foreign your aim is to remove drugs after a few run-ins with the cop this former chitta peddler has now left the business although it was lucrative this trade turned out to be quite traumatic [Music] or foreign foreign [Music] foreign [Music] most peddlers and users caught in the web of heroin are never able to get out of it because of how deeply their drug affects our brain chemistry dr anita thakur is a psychiatrist who believes that substance abuse is a mental health issue and must be handled as one she can tell that the drug use is drastically high because diseases like hepatitis c and hiv are now spreading more from shared injections rather than the usual mode of sexual transmission why are opioids so addictive we enjoy certain things you know there are certain pleasures in life like good food picnic with friends good sex so you know there are n number of pleasures that people enjoy now the problem is that it all works on the reward center so opioids actually hijacks your reward system and whatever you want to enjoy in life you need to have opioid to enjoy that [Music] it took god of nine bouts of rehab to finally quit he's still one of the lucky ones who got to go to a rehab less than three percent of addicts ever really make it to one oh ab anybody bad the entire state of himachal has only five government rehabs and gaurav works in one of them foreign [Music] while himachal looks postcard perfect with tourists the disturbing opioid crisis especially that of the synthetic heroin chita is a very complex matter it continues to be shouted in shame and stigma and even as the government is trying to do their bit and some individuals are working to bring changes on a personal level the crisis in the state is still compounding [Music] you

Channel: VICE

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Keywords: documentary, documentaries, docs, interview, culture, lifestyle, world, exclusive, independent, underground, videos, journalism, vice guide, vice.com, vice, vice magazine, vice mag, vice videos, film, short films, movies

Id: 2smpnHaHW_8

Length: 19min 49sec (1189 seconds)

Published: Fri May 06 2022