Kerala: Need for modern de-addiction centres

THRISSUR: The state needs more centres with the latest facilities  for narcotic de-addiction  and  the government has already notified setting up one centre in a government hospital in each district,  according to Mr T.V. Raphael, deputy excise commissioner  here. He was referring to reports that  there was no major change  in the registration of narcotic cases in the district and the state  even after launching a massive campaign against substance abuse among the school and college students by both excise and police departments.

According to the statistics available with the excise department,   an average of 75 narcotic cases are registered in the district and in the past five months, the figures have remained more or less the same. The excise department carried out its ‘Mukthi’ campaign and the city police did a ‘Venda Bro’ campaign against use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances among the youth.

“The target group of such campaigns were school and college students. But such campaigns will not have any impact on those who are already addicts. So going by the number of registered cases in the past months, the effectiveness of such campaigns can’t be assessed,” Mr Raphael noted. For preventing the illegal contraband sales, enforcement was the only option and for the addicts, there was need for more narcotic de-addiction centres, he said.

“The notified de-addiction centres of the government will be set up in government hospitals in one or two years and the fund for the same is expected to be announced in the next budget of the state government. Besides, a hospital of international standards similar to NIMHANS is envisaged to be set up in Kozhikode  to deal with narcotic de-addiction and related research,” he added.