Addictions and Social Approval or Acceptance: A Constitutional Perspective

By Shyam Chandvalei

One may remember the role played by Leonardo di Caprio in the Movie, The Shutter Island, where though in the end he turns out to be an ex-federal marshall, who is in a mentally unstable state. But even then, the movie somewhere, down the line, shows how medical science, especially for a very vulnerable section of the society the mentally challenged, has developed. The other section of society that has, almost forever now, been ignored, is that of those addicted to substance abuse. The youth unfortunately form a large section of this group. The words Social Approval or Acceptance in the title, denote the fact that some intoxicants such as Liquors, Cigarettes, Cigars and other harmful things are Approved or Accepted by the Society, whereas many other are not. Our Country as a socialist welfare country and our Constitution as a peoples constitution of the Country had promised the youth a lot more than what the youth today has been endowed with. And the Constitution does have provisions regarding the youth in the directive principles, Article 39(f) which reads: The state must ensure that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that Childhood and Youth are protected against Exploitation and against Moral and Material Abandonment. This provision read along with the Article 21 on the fundamental right of life & liberty in its broad interpretative sense (developed after Maneka Gandhis Case in India) clarifies where the Government falters.

Addiction is often equated with youthful (the term being more relevant to the nature of person rather than age) experimentation in the beginning, getting converted to a full fledged dependency on the drug(s). So, Is Addiction getting addicted to a specific substance or is it the resultant of the feeling of mental restlessness or insecurity; a feeling that something is wrong and the tendency of escapism from such expected wrong. Is it that someone becomes an addict because of social/moral isolation (at first voluntary and later compulsory) even after living in society, in the manner just as expressed in the song Hotel California by the Eagles or All the lonely people, by the Beatles? This may be the condition of children and/or teenagers. Are children given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity in accordance with Article 39(f)? Does the Government ensure that Childhood and Youth, today are protected against Exploitation and against Moral and Material Abandonment?ii The day when answers of such and other questions are searched for, a maturity to have and define Social Approval or Acceptance of Addiction will be gained. Also, as a part of the general myth, Addiction is considered something that is bad and unmentionable, but if an attempt to understand it is made in the following way, that when a person becomes uninterested in everything around him, the feelings of escapism enter into him, the perspective towards addiction may change. If he in reality feels this way, why does he feel so? Research done in America from 1954 to 1974 on human behavior under the influence of addictive drug(s) had shown that people transcend to imaginative levels where they are for short periods of time alienated by the present situations.iii Sounds similar to Allegory of Cave, so Are non-addicts prisoners of the cave, or is the Society and the Government so?iv Whatever may be the answer to these philosophical questions one thing surely needs to be done, the Government should frame policies for Prevention of Addiction keeping in mind the above discussion and also the Constitutional responsibility on it under Article 39(f) and Article 21. This topic in itself, is like that of the rights of Mentally Disabled, who earlier were not taken seriously, the only change in the situation regarding Addicts would be that nobody actually tries to think beyond the conventional boundaries.

All that the youth, today needs to understand, is that for deciding public policy measures for any section of the society an unconventional, empathetic and considerate approach is needed. The youth need to be united in helping each other and needs to think beyond prejudices and conventions.

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5 B.S.L.LL.B., ILS law college, Pune, India The relevant part of the article of the constitution being a resultant of the 42nd Amendment in the Indian Constitution as Article 39(f). iii Wikipedia on project MK-Ultra, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mk_ultra last visited 14th November 2010. iv For those who have not read Platos, The Republic, the allegory of cave is Plato describing the condition of people in real world, by a discussion between Socrates and Glaucon, when Socrates describes a cave so long that, the sunlight does not enter in and there are a group of prisoners who from their childhood are chained inside the cave in such a way that they can only face a wall and have a huge fire behind them at a distance such that (a) person/s shows them shadows of real objects in dark cave from their childhood, the prisoners entertain themselves by remembering what was the sequence of shadows and the one prisoner who is good at it would get all the respect and obedience. If one prisoner is let free to watch the real objects, what would he trust the real one or the shadows that he from his childhood has believed? And if slowly through showing him the reflection of the object along with the object he is slowly taken out and shown the real world outside the cave with all the light and colours and other beauties of nature would he like to return to the dark cave? Even if he is forced to do so as he was to come out, would he be interested in the activities of his fellows, which are actually of socalled justice, morality and intelligence for his fellows.