The drug abuse and trafficking have created a serious social problem. History reminds us of the condition of Greece during the 1920s and 1930s, which emerged the most drug addicted nation in the world massively affecting its society. Many professors and historians of that age claimed that a number of psychiatric clinics were established across many nations in order to control and treat the drug addicts. Similarly, the British East India Company’s opium trade to China during 1800 from India that led to the famous ‘Opium Wars’ in order to reduce addiction in China caused serious social and economic disruptions.
Drug abuse in India is very common and is of serious nature created issues like poverty, unemployment, growth in crimes, domestic violence, psychological disorder and national insecurity. Most importantly, drug abuse has threatened to ruin the future of the young generations. Drug trafficking facilitates other organised criminal enterprises such as human trafficking and gun running. Additionally, a recent exposure of drug trafficking on celebrities and other links to it, have taken the nation by shock.
The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) 2018 report indicates towards a growing illicit drug trade in India and specified that India has a direct link with global narcotics industry.
This report further indicates that India’s two regions such as northwest and northeast are primary responsible for spread of drugs in India due to their strategic location.
This apart, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) report in 2018 has also said that there were total 49,450 cases registered for drug seizure and 60,156 persons were arrested for drug trafficking. Similarly, 25th report on Persons affected by Alcoholism and Substance (Drug) abuse by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment addressed the growing drug trafficking in a few States.
The success rate of prevention of drug trafficking in India is not satisfactory.
A number of other issues that contribute to drug trafficking are growing corruption, intelligence failure, improper strategy, criminalisation of politics, poor drug detection training, failure of patrolling and surveillance at border, inappropriate coordination among different agencies and lack of law implementation and enforcement mechanism etc.
The current growing drug peddling among the celebrities and spurt in seizure of drugs in other places in India are few examples of such failures. This is a very serious issue concerning the nation’s security as well.India has had a drug legislation long back and over time it has removed many old acts (Opium Acts, Dangerous Drugs Act, Drugs and Cosmetics Act etc.) and enforced the ‘Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act)’, also amended the same Act in 1989, 2001 and 2014 in order to prevent drug trafficking, create enforcement mechanism and introduce many stringent penalty provisions.
According to this Act, any kind of cultivation, trade, import, export and any kind of local consumption of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances will be considered as serious offence as cognizable with non-bailable.
Further, to maintain the global standard of abuse of drugs, India also complied with three UN’s drug conventions such as 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. However, the present NDPS
Act fails to differentiate between a casual drug user, a hard addict, a petty peddler and a seasoned drug trafficker. There is much confusion on the issue of ‘ascertaining quantity’ and ‘purity versus total weight’ as different courts interpreted in different parameters.
Additionally, lack of coordination cannot be overlooked among the drug enforcement agencies such as Narcotics Control Division (NCD), Central Bureau of Narcotics (CBN), Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB) and other agencies like the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Central Bureau of Investigation, Customs Commission, Border Security Force etc. Therefore, proper implementation of such laws is a need of the hour.
Since drug trafficking has serious ramifications on the country’s security, it is time India paid adequate attention to the problem and formulated robust measures to overcome the loopholes in its strategy for prevention of drug trafficking.
To my findings, the Indian Government has responded by initiating many timely decisive steps such as drug laws and policies, committed workforce and agencies and several dedicated programmes to address the drug virus.
However, to achieve larger success in preventing drug trafficking and peddling, a few suggestions may be taken note of like proper strategy to guard drug trafficking at border; strengthening intelligence to prevent smuggling of drugs and rewards to the personnel those who work diligently towards preventing drug trafficking; strengthening bilateral and multilateral agreements with neighbours for prevention of illicit traffic of drugs; more advance coordination among the State agencies and Central agencies in drug policy; a national level database in order to keep a tab on production, trade and consumption of various drugs; strengthening the policy formulations with different stakeholders of society such as medical professionals, academic institutes, NGOs and drug addict representatives and last but not the least an awareness drive among the young generations.
(The writer is Assistant Professor, Xavier Law School (XLS), Xavier University, Bhubaneswar (XUB), Phone. No: 9078879450/9953079450)