Acharya Prashant addresses the question of why college students start using drugs. He explains that this phenomenon begins when young people, around 17 or 18 years old, go to college or hostels. At this age, youth is blossoming and life demands something new. When this newness is not found, the only new thing that enters their life is the bottle. He argues that this is the age when new challenges should be introduced into one's life. A campus should be a place where one is encouraged to learn dramatics, singing, swimming, running, tennis, badminton, or basketball. However, these opportunities are often absent, and the campus exists only in name. The speaker elaborates that at the age of 17-18 or 20-22, a person has a special kind of new energy. He reminisces about how energetic one is at that age, jumping out of bed and running around. This energy requires new outlets for creative investment. When campuses fail to provide these outlets, it leads to problems like drug abuse, which is most prevalent on college campuses. He cites the example of Punjab, where the drug problem is centered around campuses, and sometimes even the staff are involved as suppliers. If you don't provide meaningful challenges, young people with nothing to do in the evenings will resort to intoxication. Acharya Prashant states that the evenings, time, and energy of the youth should be filled with meaningful challenges. When they have nothing to do, and their bodies and minds are undergoing hormonal changes, they need an outlet. He suggests teaching them new arts, and they will learn. If nothing else, making an hour of exercise in the gym compulsory would make a difference. He also suggests creating film clubs, noting that most people have not seen worthwhile films but have watched a lot of popular trash. The environment in a typical campus, especially in hostels, can be very depressing and poorly maintained due to cost-cutting. Often, the students are also of an average level, having achieved no excellence before, and they find none on campus either. A student might be free by 1 or 2 PM with nothing to do, as even the classes are not engaging. This idleness leads them to seek some form of intoxication. He concludes that unless life is given juice, beauty, and splendor, one will have to resort to some form of intoxication. This intoxication is not just about drinking, eating, or sniffing drugs; it can also be the intoxication of money, sex, bigotry, or politics. He points out that even older people who watch TV all day are intoxicated. He gives an example of a person who scrolls through social media reels for hours at night because he has nothing meaningful to do in that time. This, too, is a form of addiction. The truth is that if one has hours of free time with nothing meaningful to fill them, they will inevitably get caught up in some form of addiction.
