New Delhi: Raj Babbar and Smita Patil’s son, Prateik Babbar made some explosive statements about how he took to drugs at a tender age owing to “complicated” family relationships. While speaking to a tabloid recently, Babbar opened up about his history with substance abuse and said he began early due to situations at home and not when he happened to come into money.
While he didn’t make further references about the conditions that he was referring to, it is apparent that Babbar meant a stressful situation at home which may have pushed him towards narcotics. He is out of it now and finds himself in a more secured and comfortable space with his fiancee and other family members.
But the bigger question that warrants an answer is whether drug use at a young age can have deeper consequences for health outcomes. Will it damage organs, or have serious mental health manifestations going forward?
How does young age drug use impact health outcomes
We asked a panel of healthcare experts to deep dive into the issue of drug use whilst one is not even a teenager. The panel, comprising experts from all walks of life, reached a consensus that drug use at any age could have lasting impact on the body (as well as the mind). However, they also pointed towards a slight difference between the terms – use and abuse. And that’s what, they said, made all the difference with respect to outcomes.
Dr Sameer Sadana, who has been dealing with drug abuse victims in Thane, said “quite literally use is when one does something once in a while. Abuse, on the other hand, could mean an obsession. Where you cannot function if you don’t do certain things. It’s a matter of habit. Similarly, if you have drugs at a party and forget about it the next few years and then again pop something, that’s usage. If you are using drugs on a regular basis, that’s worrisome because then it’s abuse,” he said. In India, drug abuse victims have been growing across demographies and it’s becoming a growing concern.
Drug use can happen at an early age but to get obsessed with hallucinogenic substances at a young age is the root cause of problems. “It is intrinsic to the nature of some drugs that once consumed or applied, they tend to latch on. At a young age, there is no will power to control that urge and hence use very quickly transforms into abuse,” Dr Sadana elucidates. According to his calculation, almost 70 per cent of the youth who has had access to drugs, would have become addicted to it by the time they turned young adults.
Health outcomes of usage and abuse
Both usage and abuse can be detrimental to human health. The variations could be due to a person’s individual lifestyle traits or genes but problems with substance abuse are well documented. Simply saying, drugs will have ever lasting consequences.
“Especially on the liver that bears the brunt of such abuse. Most hallucinogenic drugs have been found to cause cancer and irreparable damage to the liver, even causing cirrhosis in many patients. Inflammation is another common worry when it comes to drug usage,” says Dr Meena Sagar Dutta, a liver specialist at Ganga Ram Hospitals in New Delhi.
She reiterated that liver damage at a young age can not be reversed completely in adulthood. “During your teenage years, the body is still growing. If you expose these organs to too much of bad things, they tend to get spoilt easily. The problems will only manifest later on in life, but the damage would have already been done,” she informs.
Brain damage and strokes are the other health outcomes that result from frequent drug use. Hallucinations are the worst thing one can do to mental health, age factor notwithstanding but doctors feel they can get severe with young age and interplay of hormones.
“We have scientific evidence that brain damage at puberty can result in motor development issues later on in life. Having hallucinogenic drugs can also lead to severe neurological disorders that will have to be treated on time for the youth to recover from and lead a normal life,” said Dr Sadana.
Both experts agree that substance use and abuse at a young age can do irreparable damage to one’s body and mind. It is for this reason that drug use should be dealt with a war footing by the government authorities. In India, there are 7.21 crore people who are affected by drug abuse as we write this analysis. Narcotics has been responsible for the death of thousands of children in India in 2023 and 2024, drug overdose being the number one reason for their death. More than 50,000 children are languishing in various rehabilitation facilities across India due to drug addiction.
There is no doubt that narcotics is a systemic problem and it requires deft handling by all stakeholders before health outcomes put more youth in the line of danger.
Bollywood actor Babbar, in an interview to a tabloid, revealed that he started taking drugs much before he turned 12/13 and not after he forayed into the movies. While Babbar spoke of defeating childhood trauma and coming out of substance abuse, we ask experts if the damage to the body (and mind) is already done. Can it be reversed? Health Conditions Health News: Latest News from Health Care, Mental Health, Weight Loss, Disease, Nutrition, Healthcare
