The National Crime Records Bureau has been publishing an annual report on the Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) since 1967 that can be accessed online. As the title suggests this report covers various causes for accidental death as well as suicide, and categorises these instances by cause, profession, educational background, caste et al. In the five year period between 2010 and 2014, a total of 19,247 people committed suicide because of drug abuse/addiction.
In this article, we looked at the state-wise break-up of suicides motivated by Drug Abuse/Addiction for the past 5 years. We also analysed trends that seem to be emerging in the reports, in terms of states with highest cases of suicide.
Most Suicides in Maharashtra
The number of suicides because of drug abuse/addiction has been more than 3,000 in each of the 5 years. 40 percent of all the suicides in these five years were committed in Maharashtra.
Within the states, it is observed that
-The number of cases of suicide in Maharashtra seems to be disproportionately greater than the number of suicides recorded in any other state (usually 3 times greater than the second highest state).
-The number of cases of suicide in Tamil Nadu and Kerala seem to be increasing in number and has nearly doubled in the last 5 years.
-The number of cases of suicides in Madhya Pradesh seems to have steadily increased between 2010 and 2013, but in 2014, the number of deaths seem to have reduced by over 50percent.
-Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala border international waters, which could be a potential source of drugs entering the nation.
However, it is important to keep in mind that these numbers do not consider the massive disparity that exists between states in terms of population size. Thus to understand this information better, we have scaled the number of deaths per 1 million people in each state for 2014.
When scaled to number of deaths per 1 million people, the top 3 States with the largest number of suicides related to drug addiction remain the same, with their order changed. Furthermore, states like Tripura and Mizoram join the list, which have very small population sizes but a relatively high occurrence of suicides in every million people.
Since the tables on the ADSI simply show the number of cases, they can be misleading.
About 20 Percent of All the Suicides are in the 53 Mega Cities
The ADSI numbers make it quite clear that the number of cases outside these 53 mega cities (cities with more than a million population as per 2011 census) is 5 times the number of cases in the 53 mega cities.
However, the divide seems to be decreasing and the percentage of cases in the 53 cities has gone up by 8 percentage points in the last 5 years. This also debunks the theory that drug abuse is largely an urban problem.
The 2014 ADSI shows a decrease of over 20 percent from last year in total cases reported. This is a positive sign though there are multiple steps that need to be undertaken towards preventing people from committing suicide over drug abuse/addiction.
These steps include setting up rehabilitation and counselling centres in all states to help people who suffer from addiction. Drug addiction and abuse are problems that have devastating effects in people and their families, information from the ADSI report should be utilised for better planning in curbing this problem.
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