bathinda nukkad natak street play is the new weapon in a bid to control growing drug abuse among youth here these short plays portray the traumatic life of a drug addict and the emotionally shattering experience the family of an addict has to go throughthe idea is to dissuade impressionable youth from the fake glamour of drugs culture the members of norha richards art and theatre bathinda a club here are organising nukkad natak for about last two weeks the plays provide an insight into the anguish of the drug addicts and their family members told mani kant batish the director of the plays most of the artistes are in private or government service and spare about two hours daily for rehearsal and performing plays at various places in the townkewal who took up the initiative for starting nukkad natak told times news network that it was performed every evening between 7 pm to 8 pm at a nook or corner of a street or bazaar where they expect a good number of audiencethese plays dramatise various phases in a druggists life right from the time he starts taking drugs peer group pressure the kind of company he keep to his eventual enslavement so much so that he has to steal beg and borrow to get drugsthey also give an inside picture of the drug mafia and their modus operandi and how they laid their network to trap the youths most of smalltime sellers of drugs are addicts themselves who are in the business to make easy moneythe battle against drugs clearly needed to be taken to the street as drug addiction has become all pervasive in bathindaa report prepared by a government agency revealed that above 60 per cent of the town population was hooked to one drug or the other the maximum number of addicts are in the 2635 age group they constitute about 21 per cent of total drug addicts while 15 per cent of the drug addicts are in the 3645 age group about 13 per cent addicts are school and college going students in the 1625 agegroup revealed the report