Drug seizure cases have doubled in the country: Amit Shah

Bengaluru: Terming that drug menace a 'destroyer' of the future generation and calling for a campaign to end the drug menace in the country, the Union Minister for Home and Cooperation Amit Shah on Friday stated that the drug seizure cases has doubled in the country when compared with the figures of drug seizures made from 2014-22 and to that of seizure cases recorded from 2006-13.

At the Regional Conference on Drug Trafficking and National Security for Southern States in Bengaluru, Shah said a ‘drug free nation’ laid the basis for making the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having a developed nation by 2047 when the country celebrates in 100th year of Independence and to become 5 trillion economy by 2025, come true.

Stating figures of the drug seizures made, Shah said that a total of 3.73 lakh kg of drug have been seized across the country from 2014-22 and put the cost of the drug seizure at Rs 22,000 crore while the country recorded drug seizure cases was 1.52 lakh kgs and estimated cost of the seizure was Rs 786 crore from 2006-13.

Stating that the comparison in figures is to lift the morale of the officials concerned, the Union Minister stated that even the arrests, cases registered and drug seizure cases have gone up in the country and the country has been ‘qualitative’ cases registered and that costly of drugs such as cocaine among others including synthetic drugs have been seized.

In the last five years, Shah said 61 drugs which are psychotropic drugs have been banned in the country and observed that the provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances are strict and observed that the NDPS Act is not effectively implemented.

He asked the officials concerned to effectively implement the strict provisions of the NDPS Act to end drug menace in the country.

Shah wanted officials concerned not to consider a single drug case as an ‘isolated’ case and asked revenue, social welfare department, education department and culture department to work together in association with the health department to make the campaign against drug menace a success.

Shah appealed to the States to change in their approach from ‘top to bottom’ and to deal with drug menace and the change is needed to trace the origin of the drug and destroy its network.

Shah wanted to drive awareness to district and school levels with the help of NGOs to make the society drug free and said that there are certain countries which have 70 percent of its population under drug addiction and some countries in the range of 30 to 40 per cent drug addiction have been observed and noted “What would be the plight of such countries?”.

Shah wanted timely awareness to end the drug menace in the country.