Shimla: The state police and other government enforcement agencies claim to have adopted a zero tolerance to drugs, but the cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy and drug mafia continues to give them sleepless nights despite the fact that the police have been conducting anti-cannabis and anti-poppy campaigns to destroy their cultivation in the state over the years.
Shimla: The state police and other government enforcement agencies claim to have adopted a zero tolerance to drugs, but the cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy and drug mafia continues to give them sleepless nights despite the fact that the police have been conducting anti-cannabis and anti-poppy campaigns to destroy their cultivation in the state over the years.
School children and vulnerable youths, mainly dropouts and unemployed ones, continue to be soft targets for the drug mafia that operates in the state capital and tourist towns of Malana, Kullu, Manali, Mandi, Manikaran, Kasol, Banjar, Dalhousie, Dharamsala.
Raising the pitch against the drug menace in cities on International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking here, various government agencies launched marathon, awareness campaigns and debates among youth saying no to drugs. But these campaigns remain mere annual rituals and drug circulation continues under the nose of the police, resented the drug victims’ families.
Second, police information on the movement of drug trafficking and the cultivation of cannabis and poppy is based on the number of seizures made from local peddlers and foreigners by the police over the years. There is no exact information on the exact dimension of the drug problem in the state, admitted enforcement officials.
The two incidents — seizure of drugs from the official car of an HRTC manager near Shoghi recently and the suspicion that a couple of pharma were involved in manufacture of synthetic drugs — have caught the attention of investigating agencies in the state. The police caught a local courier supplying drugs to youths in the city recently, said police sources.
IGP Zahud Zaidi said the police were sharing data on the movement of drug traffickers and was attaching properties acquired by the peddlers caught under the NDPS Act. The anti-cannabis destruction campaigns were one in the state and were being monitored closely, he said.
He said the police faced problem as the cultivation of the contraband was considered more lucrative than that of vegetables and pulses by poor people/farmers in remote areas of the state. “Awareness about drugs among vulnerable sections of society is as important as eliminating the sources of drugs in the state and the police with the help of public and NGOs are on job,” he added.
Zaidi said they checked all suspected vehicles, including those of tourists on the basis of prior information. “We are sharing data with other state police to check the menace,” he added.
