Kerala Excise Minister TP Ramakrishnan of the CPI(M) on Friday informed the State Assembly that the sale of India-made foreign liquor (IMFl or hard liquor) had come down by nine per cent after the former Congress-led UDF Government introduced its Prohibition-through-phases liquor policy but abuse of narcotic drugs had doubled during the period.
He also pointed out that there was a huge rise in cases of smuggling of narcotic substances like cannabis, hashish, heroin and brown sugar into the State since the introduction of the liquor policy towards the end of 2014 by the former regime. All bars in the State except those at five-star hotels and clubs of the elite in the State were closed down as part of that liquor policy.
Chandrasekharan said that there was a fall by 20 lakh cases in the sales of hard liquor in the State when compared to the figures of 2013-14. However, beer sales in the State during the period went up by 61 percent. The former Government had issued licences liberally for operating beer and wine parlours after it introduced the policy aimed at bringing down use of hard liquor.
The Minister told the Assembly that the number of cases related to narcotic drugs had doubled in the three years since 2013-14. While the number of drug-related cases registered by the State Excise Department in 2013-14 was 860, this had gone up to 1704 in 2015-16, he said, indicating that the danger of liquor was perhaps being replaced by the bigger danger of drug abuse.
The House was told that even the abuse of pain-killing drugs as intoxicants was on the rise in the State. Drugs like pethidine and morphine were being used in this manner, Chandrasekharan said, adding that stringent measures would be adopted to control this.
State Excise Commissioner Rishiraj Singh had recently warned that Kerala might soon reach the situation which Punjab was currently facing with regard to trafficking and abuse of drugs. Kochi, Kerala’s commercial capital was already in the third place in the list of Indian cities as far as drug abuse was concerned, he had pointed out.