As part of a study, researchers surveyed students across six districts in India—Kamrup (Assam), Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Rajkot (Gujarat), Deoghar (Jharkhand), and Puducherry. The findings revealed that schools in Guwahati and Deoghar reported the highest share of adolescents falling into moderate-to-high risk substance use categories.
According to the report, which covered more than 6,000 adolescents across 108 government and private schools, 21.4% were at moderate-to-high risk (10.3% at moderate risk and 11.1% at high risk), while the remaining 78.6% were at low risk.
A 35.1 percentage point gap in substance risk was found between Guwahati and Nagpur. Researchers noted that nearly 40% of this regional difference could be explained by factors such as school characteristics, socio-demographic background, economic conditions, and personality traits.
Consequently, researchers called for stricter enforcement to curb adolescents' access to addictive substances, improved media literacy, and expanded peer-led school programs to prevent harmful usage.
