Drug trafficking

Drug trafficking— While drug abuse has been a serious concern in the North-East, the situation is being aggravated by the misuse of pharmaceutical drugs by the addicts. A study commissioned by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has found the situation to be alarming in five SAARC countries, i.e., India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. According to the study, drug-addicts in these countries abuse pharmaceutical drugs like Propoxyphene and Buprenorphine, mixing those with other substances. The menace of drug abuse attains even a larger dimension because it is a major factor fuelling the spread of AIDS. In neighbouring Bangladesh, the incidence of HIV-positive among injectile drug users (IDUs) has shot up to 8.9 per cent from 1.4 per cent in 1999-2000. This is no coincidence that a spate in HIV-positive cases has also been reported from the North-East bordering Bangladesh. Similar has been the situation in areas bordering Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan. Smuggling of narcotics is rampant along the border areas of the North-East, which shares international boundaries with several South East Asian nations. For the last couple of decades the North-East has been a major conduit of the flourishing narcotics smuggling, originating from the infamous ‘Golden Triangle’ of Myanmar. According to intelligence inputs, contraband drugs from Myanmar enter the North-East mainly through the two border States of Manipur and Mizoram and find their way to various parts of the country through Guwahati. The drugs mafia operates through a sophisticated network, which often catches the law-enforcing agencies on the wrong foot. While a hard crackdown is imperative to check drug abuse, the issue has socio-economic ramifications that are too serious to be ignored, and calls for meaningful interventions from civil society itself. As the drugs trap is luring more and more youths into its fold, the situation is having a disastrous impact on the society. Drug abuse has to be accorded the importance it deserves from the psychological, behavioural and social perspectives. Rehabilitation of the drug-addicted is another issue that needs adequate attention from both government and non-government agencies. Then, in so far as the abuse of pharmaceutical drugs is concerned, we need to have a better monitoring system so that the existing legal regulations concerning production and sale of products are complied with. Source: assam tribune