India, June 25 -- A recent case of a young boy, high on methamphetamine ("ice"), gouging out his own eyes in a hospital emergency room shocked people everywhere. It forces an uncomfortable question: what pushes young people toward such destructive substance use?

The numbers are sobering. AIIMS Delhi's 2019 National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre survey, the most comprehensive of its kind in India, found that 14.6% of Indians use alcohol, with 19% of those users falling into dependence. Over 5.7 crore Indians use cannabis. Opioid use runs nearly three times the global average, and heroin has now overtaken opium as the country's dominant opioid for the first time.

Yet our instinct as a society is often to shun these young people rather ...