10-year-old Mohammed Omer, 9 nine-year-old Sadiq and 20-year-old Syed Fasi are among hundreds of such boys addicted to whiteners in the Old City. The trio and scores of other such youth attended and shared their stories during a campaign, ‘Say No To Drugs’ on Tuesday organized by the police in collaboration with Hope Trust, an NGO. The objective of the campaign was to create awareness regarding ill-effects of drugs and their fall-out on families.
There are various forms of drugs; alcohol, marijuana, brown sugar etc; but there is one more silent killer and even odourless drug that is very cheap and easily accessible. Whitener is a white fluid containing organic solvents, used to erase errors in handwritten or printed papers.
Have you ever felt the whiteners give a foul smell? The chemicals present in the liquid whiteners has the same capability to intoxicate the brain as of drugs and its consumed by pouring the liquid whiteners in a cloth and sniffing it, it will give them so called dizzy feeling and hangover after a while they can be normal. However according to experts whiteners can trigger asthma and causes dizziness, confusion, depression, headache, hallucinations, seizures, vision and other problems. Long-term consumption may result in kidney and liver damage. This addiction is as bad as alcohol addiction and can even be fatal.
Fortunately! Children like Sadiq have turned a new leaf. He has stopped inhaling whiteners and is set to go back to school. In fact, he helps others too in getting rid of the habit.
The campaign was also attended by a worrying wife Shaheen, resident of Charminar whose husband is a whitener sniffer. Sick of seeing him addicted to the white poison she decided to see the counselors. She is determined to try her best to dissuade her husband from the toxic drug.