thiruvananthapuram if statistics are taken seriously the state has reasons to worry in terms of where the next generation is headed data shows that the juveniles in the state have graduated to graver crimes from petty offences like thefts and burglary figures released by the national crime records bureau in 2015 show that the state holds top position in the number of cases 35 registered under narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances act the state also recorded over 100 cases of sexual offences by juveniles out of which 67 were registered under ipc and 32 under the pocso actaccording to police authorities here the spike in narcotic cases was due to increased substance addiction among the youths most of these cases related to teenagers being used as carriers by drug mafia said a senior police offer the same drug addiction could be attributed to the rise in sexual offences the police officials saidaccording to dr g mohan roy consulting psychiatrist medical college hospital drug addiction and sexual offences among teenagers are interlinked it is a fact that teenagers were exposed to affordable narcotic substances like ganja after closure of bars mohan roy said as adults turned to alternatives for alcohol teenagers too got exposed to drugs the addiction eventually led them to crimes roy saidhe said addiction of any kind is dangerous and the parents must take it as an indicator addiction means an individual is not able to resist the things he or she likes someone who is addicted to simple things like video games and gadgets at a young age hold great chances of getting addicted to serious and dangerous stuff as they grow up dr roy explained adding that unrestricted access to media and the internet were also contributing to the risk factor he also said that the gory violence depicted in their favourite games too influenced the teenagersa recent survey conducted by childline in the capital district too returned with similar results the childline surveyed as many as 1800 students from 60 schools in the district and found out that 30 of them around 550 were into substance abuse male students from class viii to xii were randomly chosen for the survey as many as 20 schools each from coastal urban and rural areas were chosen for the survey rev fr thomas p d director of childline said that they found out that the students wrote names of around 40 different narcotic substances in the questionnaire given to them vast majority of them preferred inhalants followed by smokeless tobacco ganja and psychotropic drugs