CHANDIGARH: The Department cum Centre for Women’s Studies and Development, Panjab University today organised a special lecture on ‘Rising Toxicity in the Global Unregulated Drug Supply and the Impact on South Asian Communities in Canada’ by Ms. Anmol Swaich, Ph.D. candidate at Simon Fraser University, B.C., Canada.
The lecture was very insightful discussing the drug usage among the South Asian communities in Canada.
Ms. Anmol Swaich started by providing the insights about the prevalence of drug use in Canada, specifically focussing on the few illegal drugs which are unregulated thus leading to cases of drug overdose among the drug users. She identified economic exploitation and unemployment as the major factors behind drug usage. At the same time, the drug policy has problematised the issue of toxicity and drug overdose. She contextualised the role of drug policy, politicians and activists in the creation of criminalised and stigmatised identities of drug users, especially attributing to migrants.
In the present context, Ms. Swaich insightfully collated the drug usage among the south Asian communities, its gendered impact while focussing on the severity of the impacts relating to mental and emotional burden, accessibility, infections and violence inflicted on women.
Ms. Swaich, while drawing up from her experiences of working with the drug users discussed differences in drug supply in Canada and Punjab, reasons and implications of drug usage and consequent overdose on the users especially the international students from India. She shed light on the absence of culturally informed and evidence-based healthcare supports.
As a solution to the problem, the speaker illustrates the working of Surrey Union of Drug Users, a member driven collective, focussing on the research and policy along with culturally driven South Asian Committees. The overall theme of the lecture was to de-stigmatise the drug users, policy interventions to curb the increasing toxicity in the unregulated drugs and establishment of culturally sensitive collectives to provide safe space to participate in policy research and interventions.
The lecture was followed by questioning by the audience resulting in a lively discussion. The Question-answer also dwelled on the drug menace in north-western region of South Asia.
Prof. Manvinder Kaur, Dr. Ameer Sultana, Dr. Kanwaljit Dhillon, Guest faculty, non-teaching staff, research scholars, and students actively participated in the discussion. Earlier, Dr. Rajesh K. Chander, Chairperson, welcomed the speaker with a sapling. Ms. Akanksha and Ms. Veerdeep conducted the proceedings and thanked Prof. Renu Vig, Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Rumina Sethi, DUI, & Prof. Y.P. Verma, Registrar, and the DCWSD organising team for providing the motivation, inspiration and support to organise the Special Lecture.