From curiosity to dependence

society

Karachi has always had a restless rhythm, with ambition and anxiety sharing the same skyline and keeping the best of us intellectually and monetarily challenged. As a continuously evolving and expanding city, Karachi has made ‘challenge’ its most frequent friend, one that keeps visiting us with the floating debris comprising values, family bonds, intellectual pursuits and faith.

The spirit of the city is resilient; however, my quest to pick up the pen this time is rather painful. Having been an educator for decades, the raids, the checks in bustling corridors and the outpour of vapes and cigarettes are familiar scenes in higher education institutions. The crisis has now taken roots and threatens the entire paradigm that we often refer to as the ‘future of Pakistan’ - its youth. Between homework and hangouts, between school uniforms and social media filters, a generation is drifting into a haze. Cigarettes and joints, once whispered vices, have evolved into new-age indulgences: vapes, nicotine pouches and patches and flavoured gummies, disguised as experiences that need to be tried.

These substances are everywhere - sleekly packaged, brightly coloured and dangerously accessible. They sparkle on shelves and in backpacks, travel discreetly through courier networks and pass easily from hand to hand at cafés and classrooms. Sold under the table and marketed through whispers, they have become a new currency of cool.

Substance use is not new to this region. The Mughal courts were awash in opium and hashish, their emperors drifting between indulgence and introspection. Colonial officers dulled their boredom with imported liquor. Intoxication has always had an audience - from pretentious mystic quacks seeking transcendence, to unjust monarchs seeking forgetfulness, to the pseudo- elite who assume mutual intoxication to be a binding force.

But what was once a luxury of the few has become a coping mechanism for the many. Today’s addiction is not poetic; it is industrial. It is not born from curiosity of the genius, but from emptiness of the ordinary.

I am reminded of ‘Terminator’, the Hollywood classic, where a progressive future of humanity is being aborted via a diabolical time machine. The same is happening here - addiction now defines generations seeking a world that commodifies distraction. It is targeting children who have not yet grown into their futures, making what was once a vice of the lost and reckless, become a pastime of the curious and connect.

The substance economy has evolved with startling sophistication as well. A vape pen is no longer contraband; it is a lifestyle accessory. Nicotine pouches, flavoured with mint or mango, fit neatly between conversations. Gummies infused with ‘relaxants’ look no different from candy. “Everything is available,” says a 17-year-old student from Karachi’s Clifton area, requesting anonymity. “You just need the right number or Telegram link.” There are no dark alleys anymore - just bright screens and invisible transactions, often a digital handshake.

Always pragmatic in approach and open to being proven wrong, my next question was about the affordability of these obviously expensive habits. Do parents know? Do they even suspect? Why do they ensure cash supply? And do they not see? The evidence may be subtle, but it is visible: red-rimmed eyes masked by cologne and caffeine; sudden mood swings dismissed as ‘teenage attitude’; social withdrawal alternating with bursts of manic energy.

I am told that many of these kids are escapists and in their quest for something to quiet their minds, to dull the pressure, they lie. What pressure? I ask. Do they need to leave education and look after the family? Do they need to work two shifts a day? Do they go without meals? Are they being pushed to study the philosophy of Diogenes of Sinope or find Nietzsche in Iqbal against their will. The parent looks at me dumbfounded – “the pressure of growing up today,” she says. The pendulum swings violently between overachievement and exhaustion, social media perfection and private despair. The virtual shadows of nothingness that dominate the social pages, where everyone is perfect. The response is negative again, with the justification that their lives are surrounded by people who live on social pages themselves.

Nietzsche warned of the ‘last man’ - the comfortable creature who blinks at life’s challenges, who seeks only ease and avoids all suffering, the one who lies to others and to oneself. “Man is something to be overcome,” he declared, urging humanity toward greatness through struggle. Yet here we raise a generation of last men, cushioned from discomfort, numbed by screens and substances, blinking lazily at the very challenges that could forge them into something magnificent.

Are we also witnessing a deeper fracture here - the slow erosion of family as the central unit of emotional stability?

The modern Karachi household is often built on ambition but hollowed by absence. Working women balance professional demands with domestic expectations; career-driven men chase performance metrics more diligently than ‘me time’ or family time. The nuclear family, once a symbol of progress, has become an island - proud but isolated. Privacy has replaced presence. Convenience has replaced connection. In this redefined structure, children grow up with more freedom but fewer foundations. The grandparents’ watchful eye is gone; the cousin circle is replaced by online followers; the evening meal is now a menu of separate schedules.

What remains is space - too much of it. And into that space, substances seep easily. Without moral compass or emotional closeness, children turn to what’s available: a puff, a pill, a pouch, a momentary escape.

Culture, too, has played its role in seduction. From Jim Morrison’s smoky lyrics to Bollywood’s romanticised rebels, the narrative of ‘creative chaos’ and ‘beautiful destruction’ has endured. Movies show the melancholy artist lighting a cigarette; music videos frame vapes demanding empathy for the misunderstood. What began as the hippie generation’s rebellion against conformity has been reborn as a lifestyle of escapism. Only now, the rebellion has no ideology - just a hashtag.

For Karachi’s youth, this glamorised defiance finds its stage in cafés, beaches and house parties. Here, sharing a vape or a nicotine pouch is less about addiction and more about identity - belonging to a tribe that values thrill over thought, release over reason. Addiction thrives in silence: in homes where discomfort is avoided, in schools where conversations on mental health are rare and in communities where morality is preached but empathy is scarce.

Parents often assume that ‘good schools’ and ‘busy schedules’ are enough. But education without engagement breeds distance, not discipline.

Both Iqbal and Nietzsche understood that youth is not merely a phase but a promise - the raw energy that either builds civilisations or squanders itself in decadence. Iqbal’s shaheen (eagle) soars above mediocrity, eyes fixed on heights unknown. Nietzsche’s Übermensch rises through self-overcoming, creating meaning where none exists. Both visions demand struggle, purpose and the courage to confront life’s difficulties head-on.

The smoke rising from Karachi’s youth is an SOS signal for help and it’s time we saw it for what it is and washed it down with a shower of attention and progressive schedules before it swallows our future.

The author is a content strategist,educationist, researcher and a corporate host. She can be reached at [email protected]