The currently prevailing drug menace is badly sapping the potential of India’s youth. What are the reasons for its persistence in our country? Enumerate the measures taken by Indian government to curtail the same
The currently prevailing drug menace is badly sapping the potential of India’s youth. What are the reasons for its persistence in our country? Enumerate the measures taken by Indian government to curtail the same
- As per a recent survey, around 5 crore Indians are exposed to cannabis and opioids in one way or the other annually.
Reasons:
- India’s proximity to two largest Opium producing regions of the world ie.the Golden triangle and Golden crescent
- Involvement of many terrorist and insurgent groups which are based outside India in peddling the drugs (which is relatively difficult quell)
- Corruption at all levels of administration (which lets through the drugs)
- Increasing economic and social stress in the country
- Experimentation, cultural beliefs on drugs, neurotic pressure adds further muscle
Governments Steps:
Constitutional Mandate:
- Article 47 of our Constitution puts pressure on the Indian ruling establishments to protect the people from the dangers of the drug abuse
- Article 21 (Right to Life) also hinges upon the same
Legislations:
- The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, (NDPS) 1985 tries to fight the menace in all possible ways
- The Anti-Drug Abuse Act, 1988, it established the Office of National Drug Control Policy
- The Mental Health Care Act, 2017 has included alcohol and drug use disorders under its ambit.
- Community outreach programmes like Nasha Mukt Bharat
- National Drug Abuse Survey measures the extent of drug abuse in the country
- National Fund for Control of Drug Abuse to meet the expenses
- National AIDS Control Programme-IV, places special emphasis regarding the treatment of the people with Injection Drug Use (IDU)
- Project Sunrise to tackle the rising HIV prevalence in north-eastern states, especially among people injecting drugs
- Narcotics Control Bureau, a statutory body constituted in 1986 to fight the menace
- Seizure Information Management System (SIMS) software used by NCB to pool online database of drug offences and offender
- Narco-coordination centre (NCORD) mechanism for coordination among various Central and State agencies
- The National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC) has also been established at AIIMS, Delhi
- International Cooperation:
- Important treaties signed in this regard include UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (1888) and UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), 2000
- India has signed 26 bilateral pacts, 15 memoranda of understanding and two agreements on security cooperation with different countries for combating illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs.
The success of all these steps is an imperative for the birth of a New India
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