‘Dandy’ or glue-sniffing spreading fast among street children

Syed Shemul Parvez :
Street children are getting addicted to ‘dandy’ alarmingly in Dhaka city. It is another name for glue-sniffing among its users.
According to the experts, the ‘dandy’ dissolves the casing of brain cells and causes hallucinations among the kids. Besides, this addicted group is also being involved gradually with various crimes including theft, mugging, even murder incidents in the local area.
Government should take measures to bring these children into a discipline life, experts urged.
It was seen on the spot that Rabiul, a10-year teen orphan boy who sleeps at the footpath of Polashi area in the city, was taking dandy openly with other street boys. When asked, he told The New Nation, “Dandy makes me fall to sleep easily and forget the harshness of my life, livelihood and other things.” He normally collects garbage for his living.
“I started taking ‘dandy’ as a drug when I was a minor of 4 to 5 years old as it was cheap and available in the local area,” he said.
“With part of what I earned by collecting garbage, I spent for my food and with the rest I buy ‘dandy’. I do love to sleep all day,” he said with a curious smile on his face.
Rabiul farther said that a glue pot normally sells in the markets at around Tk 120 to 130. But when they go to purchase it, the shopkeeper takes Tk 350 to 400 per pot which is too expensive for them.
At present, breathing in fumes from glue-soaked rags and glue-filled plastic bags is a regular activity for the maximum street children like Rabiul in the city.
Dandy, used by shoe repairers, is an adhesive which contains toluene, a sweet smelling and intoxicating hydrocarbon. Besides, dandy is not expensive and always found in supply
unlike other drugs. It is both legal and cheap – making it a very convenient substance to abuse.
On Thursday, it was seen on the spot that a group of street children taking ‘dandy’ using dendrites in a plastic bag and put their mouths in the plastic bag to inhale in the area beside BUET. They generally gather in groups to take in turn to inhale in public places especially at the bus stations, train stations, launch terminals, footpaths, and footbridges.
According to locals, street children can inhale dandy openly and easily because the community and most of the police are not aware of it.
Last year, a World Bank study indicated that a stunning number of Dhaka’s 249,000 street children are addicted to drugs, especially to glue-sniffing.
Dr. Farzana Rahman, professor and chairperson of criminology department , University of Dhaka , told the New Nation that this is a problem which is related to maternal deprivation theory . Actually these children are orphans or don’t have parents with them, these children are getting involved with drug addiction and crimes gradually.
Besides, our government is not aware of this issue. Even there are no any effective initiatives to rehabilitate them, she added.
Syeda Ananya Rahman, program manager of the anti-drug organization Work for Better Bangladesh, said there is none to look after these street children, so it is easy for them to become addicted to drugs.
Drug abuse creates physical and socio-behavioural problem of children and affects the economic and social aspects of society in the country as a whole, she said.
As per their study, there are currently more than one million street children in the country, half of them are under the age of 10 while about 95 percent use different drugs.
“We all need to be aware of this because the children are our future generation. We should use the law strictly in this regard,” she said.
 According to the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) projects, the number of street children stood at 1.5 million in 2015 and it will reach 1.56 million in 2024.