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The small town of Aluva in Kerala is emerging as a hub for narcotic traffic and use. The State is stepping up its efforts to curb the problem, but easy availability and access to drugs is spurring the trade, reports M.P. Praveen Dressed in a grey shirt and black trousers, Amal*, 21, walks into the room with a big smile. No one would be able to guess that he was locked up in a drug rehabilitation centre in Muvattupuzha in eastern Ernakulam for over a fortnight. Amal was acquainted with drugs when he was just 13 years old. He was in danger of “losing his mind”, he says, before he controlled his impulses in order to get his life back on track. Gentle prodding by the excise officials who had nabbed him as well as his mother’s tears paved the way for his rehabilitation. Amal looks composed. “It feels like waking up from a nightmare,” he says. “Earlier, I could not smile, enjoy jokes, or have a normal conversation. I was in a different world. I could beat anyone to pulp and feel nothing about it. I feel more human now.” While his little hamlet Manjali in Ernakulam district is famous for its halwa and biryani, it was ganja that Amal fell in love with as a teenager, influenced by his peers. “But I never got addicted to it. The ganja that we get here is of low quality. Once, during an online chat, a friend and I shared some pictures of the grass we smoked. And he snubbed me for savouring trash,” he says. Like several others, Amal went on to trade ganja for headier stuff, all because of a friend who was into “real stuff” and kept the source of his supply close to his chest. Soon, Amal was catapulted to a life of perpetual high, riding on a cocktail of meth, MDMA, and LSD. His family, comprising an indifferent father, clueless mother and a younger brother, had known that something was amiss with him. But it took his mother time to find out what was going on. Vishal*, 19, was on the verge of depression at 15 when his learning disability isolated him from his competitive peers. At his school in suburban Ernakulam, neither his teachers nor his peers came to his rescue. His aloofness, however, attracted the attention of a peddler who introduced him to ganja. By the time his dependence on drugs was detected by the family, Vishal had become an addict. He went through a de-addiction routine, which proved futile. But four years since his first experience with ganja, Vishal is slowly piecing together his life. A bad accident which confined him to bed for about three months was what finally pulled him away from the clutch of drugs. From Aluva, the shadowy network has cast its spell over Kochi. Former Excise Commissioner Rishi Raj Singh had warned a few years ago that Kochi would become home to the second biggest community of drug addicts after Amritsar. He wasn’t completely off the mark. Despite the spike in demand for designer drugs, ganja continues to have a stranglehold over drug abusers — perhaps because it is cheap and readily available. “Ganja largely comes from the Naxal-infested areas of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. This is where a few ganja farmers from Idukki district have migrated and it is from these places it is smuggled in via Namakkal, Cumbum and Theni in Tamil Nadu. A colony named Uthamapuram, located between Namakkal and Cumbum, is notorious for ganja trade but remains out of bounds for enforcement agencies,” says T.A. Ashok Kumar, Assistant Excise Commissioner (Enforcement). The business model for ganja is simple. A couple of kilograms for a few thousand rupees are smuggled in, split into numerous small packets, and marketed under the brand name, Idukki Gold, to leverage the popular perception that ganja from Idukki is the best, says Kumar. Vying with ganja in terms of volume are the Nitrazepam tablets. These are smuggled from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka where they can be bought from medical shops without a prescription. A strip of Nitrazepam tablets bought for around Rs. 40 is sold for as high as Rs. 500 making it a highly lucrative business proposition, Kumar says. There are other types of drugs too. Early this year, an excise squad in Ernakulam made arguably the biggest-ever haul of hashish in Kerala. Over six kilos of hashish valued at Rs. 13 crore in the market were seized from a man who used to smuggle the substance from Nepal via Uttar Pradesh. The most perceptible rise was in the seizure of Nitrazepam tablets — from 1,500 tablets in 2016, it rose to 7,800 in 2017, 10,700 in 2018, and 3,100 in 2019. “The seizures account for just a fraction of the drugs smuggled in,” says Sam Christy Daniel, State Additional Excise Commissioner (Enforcement). “The apex court decree that the informant and the investigation officer should not be the same person has further dented the enforcement drive of the Excise Department which is already affected by manpower shortage. The enforcement wing of the Excise Department is restricted to 58 circle inspectors and 14 Deputy Excise Commissioners for 138 excise range offices across the State.” While contraband drugs always had their presence in the State, the proliferation of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substance cases is attributed by large sections to the previous government’s decision to close down bar hotels below the four-star category towards the end of its term in 2015. Constitutional expert Sebastian Paul thinks that the growing menace of drugs is a fallout of the liquor ban. “Enforcing prohibition without laying the groundwork will not only lead to its failure but give rise to other more serious societal problems. History is replete with evidence to that effect. The advent of bootlegging and consequential law and order problems in America in the aftermath of prohibition is a classic case,” he says. Psychiatrist C.J. John, who has over the years dealt with several drug abuse victims from all age groups and family backgrounds, says that there is a new trend among the youth. “The theory for long has been that youngsters with emotional problems and from dysfunctional families are most vulnerable to drugs. While that theory still holds water, a new tendency seems to be on the rise where youngsters from perfectly normal families are turning to drugs solely for recreational purposes. As we focus more on treatment and rehabilitation, the most critical area of early detection is often overlooked,” he says. He says there is a need for an enforcement protocol in dealing with the youth caught in drug trade so that they are not stigmatised for the rest of their lives. Stringent laws and severe punishment do not seem to have worked as a deterrent for peddlers. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act has two schedules dealing with narcotics drugs and psychotropic substances. The punishment varies with the kind of drug and the quantity of seizure. “It is only in the case of contraband drugs like ganja that less than one kg is treated as a small quantity and bail is granted. As for psychotropic drugs, even a few milligrams are considered the commercial quantity, and anyone found possessing that much even inadvertently or out of ignorance lands up behind the bars for years,” says M. Revi Krishnan, a lawyer in the Kerala High Court. “The statute is rigorous. With the judiciary also taking a serious note of the drug menace, even procedural lapses are not taken as a ground for bail,” he adds. School Protection Groups operated jointly by the Education, Police and Excise departments and ward-level Vimukthi Senas with five volunteers each are some of the other initiatives being tried out by the State to keep its younger generation away from drugs. The number of addicts and seizure of drugs shows that it requires sustained efforts to curb the new scourge.
Source : https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/ecstasy-and-the-agony/article28614409.ece
