A youth drugs crisis now overshadows a corner of north-east India where less than a century ago people were still living in huts and worshipping idols.
The warning, from Bishop Stephen Rotluanga of Aizawl, close to the border with Burma and Bangladesh, comes amid statistics showing that up to one in three young people are affected by drug abuse.
Other figures quoted by the bishop state that in the capital, also named Aizawl, there are now 20 drug rehabilitation centres.
In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, the charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, Bishop Rotluanga blamed the crisis on marriage breakdown, the impact of the global media and a decline in traditional values.
He spoke of the "brittle" development of society, which is now unrecognisable compared to the situation before the First World War when people were still animist in their beliefs and lived in bamboo huts.
The region is very different from other parts of north-east India, which remain very deprived and under-developed and where far from grappling with youth drug problems, people are struggling with extreme poverty.
Bishop Rotluanga said: "In my part of India, young people, who can afford to, take painkillers, cannabis, cheap types of adhesive which they inhale, cough syrup - anything that can alter their state of mind.
"In some instances, due to substance abuse and misuse of needles, doctors dealing with the problem have to amputate limbs etc."
Key to the problem, he said, is high unemployment which creates huge frustration in a region which has the second highest literacy levels across India, ranking only behind Kerala in the south-west.
