With two kids aged 7 and 10 years, my heart started pounding when I read about the Strawberry Candy drug doing rounds in Delhi schools. As with most children, my kids love eating sweets and chocolates. They are aware that they should not take anything from strangers or go with anyone they don’t know. But for them school is a safe haven; a place where they are surrounded by people they know will protect them. So to tell them that strawberry flavoured sweets laced with drugs were being given to children in schools was quite shocking. These are apparently being handed out in the schoolyards.
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What Is In The sweets?
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Strawberry Quick looks like a regular sweet but has methamphetamine or meth in it. It sizzles like pop rocks which burst and play a happy dance on your tongue, but this is actually deadly. Methamphetamine is an extremely addictive stimulant drug that takes the form of a white, odourless, bitter-tasting crystalline powder. It can be taken orally, smoked, snorted, or dissolved in water or alcohol and injected. Smoking or injecting the drug delivers it very quickly to the brain, where it produces an immediate, intense euphoria. The candy is now being circulated in other flavours as well, so we need to be extremely cautious.
What Can We Do?
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A number of schools have issued circulars warning parents to educate their children about not taking any kind of sweets from strangers or friends. The police is aware of the problem and are trying to circle in on the drug peddlers. They are also working on doing workshops to counsel the children about substance abuse.
It’s our job as parents to make sure that our kids are aware of the disastrous effect drugs can have on their lives and here is what you can do right away:
- Talk to them about the drug and tell them about what it will do to their brain development and their lives. An overdose of the drug can actually kill a child.
- Ask them to tell a teacher or a parent if they think a friend is behaving odd. Experts say parents should take notice if a child’s grades drop, if he loses interest in the activities he once loved, if he changes friends, or if he starts to have trouble at school.
- Reiterate the fact that they are not to take candy, food, gifts or anything else from anyone other than their own family members. This may seem extreme, but is a necessary step.
A little fear instilled now about drugs and their ill-effects could help keep them away from a lifetime of bad habits.
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KSP Team
Dr Manjari Rao
Janani S Koushik
