A bizarre and troubling situation has unfolded in Punjab, leaving jail authorities deeply worried. As drug supplies inside prisons have tightened, many addicted inmates have reportedly turned to an astonishing alternative—lizard tails. Viral social media posts claim that prisoners desperate for a high have begun cutting the tails off wall lizards, drying them, and either mixing the powder with tobacco or rolling it into beedis to smoke. This strange addiction trend has become so widespread that lizards have practically vanished from prison walls, creating panic among jail staff.
Though it may sound like an unbelievable rumor, medical reports and past criminal cases suggest otherwise. Despite strict action against drug smuggling, addicted inmates have found this disturbing method to feed their cravings.
A government survey from 2023 revealed that 42% of Punjab’s prisoners use drugs. When heroin, hashish, or spirits become hard to obtain, prisoners often turn to whatever they can find within the jail environment—especially Indian wall lizards.
Medical experts, too, have been shocked by such cases. In 2014, Rajindra Hospital in Patiala reported a striking incident involving a 25-year-old inmate addicted to cannabis for 15 years. When he couldn’t access drugs, fellow prisoners taught him the “lizard-tail method”—burning lizards, collecting the ashes, and smoking them for a marijuana-like high. In another case from 2013 at PGIMS Rohtak, an inmate consumed powdered lizard tails, which left him intoxicated for nearly 12 hours. Doctors classified it as an “Unconventional Psychoactive Substance,” known to trigger hallucinations and extreme lethargy.
Punjab’s drug crisis remains severe—often described as the real-life “Udta Punjab.”
In 2023 alone, more than 8,000 inmates were tested, and 42% were found to be drug users, including:
– 900 out of 1,900 inmates in Amritsar Jail
– 647 out of 1,673 inmates in Bathinda Jail
The desperation doesn’t end there. Prisoners have reportedly experimented with snake venom and scorpion stings for intoxication. With addiction levels rising, the use of lizard tails has also increased, giving inmates easy access to an unconventional and dangerous drug sources. Authorities are now scrambling to remove lizards from prison areas in an attempt to stop this alarming practice.
As per this news, it’s hard to say whether this is truly an ongoing issue inside Punjab’s prisons or just a social-media-driven rumor, possibly even an indirect hint to addicts about a bizarre new way to get high. And if the incident is real, it raises even bigger questions: How many prisoners are actually using this trick? If most inmates are seeking lizard tails, where are they finding so many does that mean there’s an unnoticed source of lizards happening behind bars?
In the end, as a reader, the question is yours to decide; do we believe such shocking claims/rumors, or do we use this story to spark awareness about the extreme lengths addiction can push people toward?
