Many regions in West Bengal’s Durgapur district have seen a sudden surge in the demand for flavoured condoms, after a few youths in the district are using it to get intoxicated.
The local administration is reportedly concerned about the sharp increase in condom demand. Apparently, as soon as the inventory of flavoured condoms arrives at the medical stores in City Centre, Benachiti, Muchipara, Bidhannagar, C Zone, and A Zone in the Durgapur district, it all disappears off the shelves in a jiffy.
When a shop owner inquired about the reason for the unexpected increase in demand for flavoured condoms, it was discovered that some youths were using them as a form of addiction. When he asked a young man, a regular customer at his shop, in response, the young man said, he regularly buys condoms to get intoxicated. The shopkeeper said that earlier he was only selling 3 to 4 packets of condoms daily, but now, his entire stock disappears the moment it arrives at the store.
How can a person get ‘high’ on condoms
News18 Bangla quoted an official as explaining that when flavoured condoms are soaked in hot water, some kind of alcoholic compound is released. The students are leaving that liquid for a long time, sometimes overnight, before drinking it. Officials claimed that the concoction gives the students a high for almost 10 to 12 hours.
“Condoms contain aromatic compounds. It breaks down to form alcohol. It is addictive. This aromatic compound is also found in dendrites glue. So many people use dendrite for addiction also,” said Dheeman Mandal, who works at Durgapur Divisional Hospital, while responding to this bizarre fascination.
Analyzing this further, Durgapur RE College Model School Chemistry teacher Nurul Haque said, “The long-term soaking of condoms in hot water causes intoxication due to the breakdown of large organic molecules into alcoholic compounds.”
Strange as it may sound, this is far from the first time that youths have experimented with novel and creative methods of getting high. For many, readily accessible household products, like cough syrup, glue, paint, nail polish, hand sanitisers, aftershave, balm or Iodex etc, continue to be their preferred substance.
In fact, in Nigeria, in the mid of 21st century, the sale of toothpaste and shoe ink increased 6 times than usual just because of addiction. And now, condoms are going off the shelves in Durgapur within a day or two, raising concerns for the district administration.
