Drug haven busted in Kerala

Kerala: A chance catch of two miscreant youths just out of their teens by undercover cops in the capital city on October 17 turned out to be the kind of secret password the sleuths were looking for to crack open into the netherworld of drug peddlers. Suddenly thrown open was an improbable network of brothels, barber shops, pharmaceutical shops, five-star hotels and bakeries that feed sleaze and drugs to school children, both boys and girls.

The sleuths were roaming around a relatively silent part of the city, investigating a sex and drug racket rumoured to function near a hair cutting saloon in the area, when they were informed of two drug-addict youths creating trouble in a nearby place. It was a case of one thing leading to the other. The arrest of these 20-year-olds led the police to nab another 20-year-old addict who had on the same day clubbed a pharmacy employee on the head with a beer bottle for refusing to sell him a drug.

The interrogation of the three led the police to pharmacy shops in the city that sold drugs at a premium without prescription. More suspects and their interrogation led to prostitution rings that sold both drugs and girls to school and college boys, to bunk shops near schools that peddled drugs, to DJs from places like Goa who sell high-inducing drugs at rave parties in five-star hotels, and to bakeries and barber shops that sold weed and cocaine. What’s more, the police also had a list of names of those who regularly took these drugs. Police sources said that most of the children who sourced these drugs were from prominent schools in the state.

Supplies to these unlikely drug outlets – bakeries, barber shops and bunk shops – come mostly from outside the state. Ganja is mainly brought in either by migrant workers or by those disguised as migrant workers. They pack it tightly in bags and smuggle the contraband in trains. The distribution within the state is also carried out by them. Kozhikode Assistant Excise Commissioner (Enforcement) T V Rafeal said that smugglers are exploiting the weak monitoring of Railways. "Since there is no effective mechanism to check the products being parceled, anyone can parcel the booty to any person by merely producing an identify proof," he said.

Kochi is the favoured destination of drug peddlers. The demand has shot up in the city in recent times, encouraging the dealers to push up price by five-fold in recent months. “What used to be sold for Rs 100 is now going for Rs 500,” said a police officer of the city special branch, who has been tracking the operations of the ganja mafia in central Kerala. He said that the peddlers target children from affluent families studying in some of the upmarket schools and colleges.

The city police is also tracking youngsters who go for regular bike trips from Kochi to Rajakkad and nearby areas. “They are suspected to be carriers of ganja from Idukki for sale in the city though the original Idukki Gold is said to be extinct,” the officer said. The popularity of ‘Idukki Gold’, a greener variety of weed that has acquired a sort of mythical status especially after the Ashiq Abu film, has prompted the ganja mafia to smuggle cheaper varieties of ganja into Idukki and pass it off as the costly Idukki Gold.

The North East-based drug mafia is also said to have a considerable presence in the city. “West Bengal and Assam supply the lion’s share of ampoules and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to the city at 20-30 times the original price,” the officer said.

The easy availability of anti-depressants and painkillers seems to have put things out of control. Medical shops are supposed to seize the prescription once the sale is made. And if the outlet is able to provide only a part of the medicine asked for, the quantity sold should be written on the prescription paper.  “This is not followed, leading to illegal drug amassment. A person who is prescribed an anti-depressant now goes to 10 or more shops with the same prescription," an excise official said.

The seizure of a huge cache of 410 kg of ganja from an interstate struck in the capital in 2010 had pointed to a more sinister source. “It came in the parcel trucks of a renowned Karnataka-based courier agency. We traced its source back to a naxal infested location in Andhra where even their local police could not help us with
plugging the source,” a police source said.

Psychiatrists who deal with drug addiction in children say that it is mostly the urge for experimentation that eventually instills the urge for the intoxicant or the inhalant in an adolescent. These doctors also encounter children who use drugs to attain the kind of emotional peace or high they have been denied at home.

“Among teenage boys, testing these things is considered manly, something to boast about. It provides the thrill of a forbidden adventure. Therefore, they don’t look at smoking ganja or sniffing cocaine or injecting ampoules as a crime,” said Dr Vidhu Kumar who works in the Child Psychiatric Clinic of the Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram. “But the drug begins to have a hold on the
person after it is taken twice or thrice. And by the time the danger is realized, he or she is irredeemably glued to the drug,” Dr Vidhu Kumar said.

He said that 70-80 cases reach the Child Psychiatric Clinic every Saturday. Of this, 10 percent of them would invariably be related to some kind of addiction. “But at times children who were brought in for other psychological disturbances like insomnia or anger were later revealed to be drug users. It will emerge that drug abuse had triggered other psychological problems ,” Dr Vidhu Kumar said.

Children with attention deficit hyperactive syndrome (ADHS) or oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) are said to be prone to addiction. “Such children are generally found backward in academics. The use of such stuff is their way of showing off,” said Dr K A Kumar, who works in a leading private hospital. He said that there was a misconception that counselling could produce wonders. “The fact is, it works only in a certain environment,” Dr Kumar said.

According to him 50-60 percent of addicted children could be weaned from the habit if their addiction is less than a year old. But even this could be achieved only if there are other favourable factors: sensible parents who are neither punitive nor casual, a stable home environment and a healthy peer group.