While I was waiting at the medical store’s counter to get some medicine for a patient, a young guy with a haggard look and shabby dress, shaking and unsteady, came over and put some coins on the counter desk, asking for Avil, a popular anti-allergic drug that comes cheap and in varying forms: tablets, syrup, and injection. The druggist made a little joke on the guy, whom I had already guessed to be a drug-addict. There are so many of them inhabiting the roadside and dark corners of streets and lanes in the city. You know them almost instinctively by their miserable look.

The druggist took the coins and gave him a vial and a syringe. The guy went off, carrying himself in an unbalanced gait characteristic of drug addicts.

‘He looked like a drug addict,’ I said to the druggist. He affirmed it and said that the guy was a heroin addict, one of numerous others who come to buy Avil from his and other medical stores in the market.

‘Why Avil?’ I asked, curious to know why heroin addicts would take anti-allergic agents. The store owner told me that these poor ‘druggies’ use heroin of inferior quality which causes itching and other annoying symptoms. To get rid of these painful symptoms, they use Avil. Feeling sad over the misery of these dregs of our society, I asked if it was safe for them to use syringes and if they shared it with others. I was told that they have got used to anti-allergic medicine and most of them probably shared the syringes with others too.

‘Why do you sell them these anti-allergic drugs without prescription?’ I asked while I was near leaving the counter. The druggist answered that if they (the druggists) didn’t sell them these things; the addicts would frantically seek them out from hospital wastes in order to relieve the painful symptoms. I shuddered in sorrow and pity. Infected hospital waste injecting into their bodies! Before I left, I was also told that the government had banned the use of anti-allergic drugs (without prescription) for a week or two but later lifted the ban.

‘And how many are they?’ I asked my last question.

‘The whole city is buzzing with them,’ said the druggist. I hurried to leave. It was too hard to hear anymore. And I could do nothing except writing it down and seeking opinion on the issue.