Even a person like Don Veto Corleone, the dreaded chief of one of the mafia families in The Godfather, the famous novel authored by Mario Puzo, backed out from anything connected with narcotics. He said a big no when one of the rival clans approached him with a business proposal on narcotics smuggling.
But not the new generation of youngsters in Tamil Nadu. Sleuths of the Narcotics Control Bureau has come across a shocking phenomenon on college campuses across Tamil Nadu. There are students in colleges, including professional colleges acting as drug pushers and this has resulted in drastic increase in the number of drug addicts in campuses across the State.
“We have zeroed in on students in engineering colleges and other professional colleges who are acting as drug pushers and peddlers. This is a dangerous development and we are watching the situation. There are many professional drug pushers in college campuses in Chennai,” Prem Anand Sinha, director, Narcotics Control Bureau’s Chennai Zonal Unit, told The Pioneer.
Though Sinha, the young IPS officer has arrested many ‘drug pushers’ (those transporting and selling drugs and banned substances) , this is the first time he has come across brilliant students involved in drug trafficking. “The commercialisation of education has made it easy. You get enrolled as a student in any of the professional colleges paying the stipulated fee. Then you become a free bird in the campus,” pointed out Sinha.
A student junky (as the drug pusher is known) can market the drug more effectively than the conventional drug pusher.
“There are no restrictions and no one will doubt about his antecedents,” said Dr lakshmi Vijayakumar, a psychiatrist of repute who runs an agency for de-addiction and counselling.
“Yes, there has been a drastic increase in the number of students getting addicted to drugs,” Dr lakshmi told The Pioneer.
She also blamed the commercialisation of education as the reason for the crisis.