Pandora's box opened: Top US official flags threat of synthetic drugs

In an interview to PTI, Dr Rahul Gupta, the White House Director of National Drug Policy, also emphasised the partnership between the two countries under the US-India Drug Policy Framework for the 21st Century, agreed upon between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the United States last year.

Gupta led the American delegation to the fifth US-India Counternarcotics Working Group meeting hosted in New Delhi this week, during which stakeholders from both sides deliberated upon taking forward the joint vision of the two leaders.

"It was a really special meeting because last year in June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his state visit to the US, and President Biden agreed upon creating a 21st-century framework for a drug policy between the two countries, which was executed just last month. So now we have a fully-executed framework that actually looks at those three pillars," he said.

The three pillars of the framework are -- countering illicit production and trafficking of drugs as well as their precursor chemicals of concern; advancing a sustainable and holistic public health partnership; and advancing a secure and growing pharmaceutical supply chain.

Asked what are some of the challenges globally when it comes to countering the menace, Gupta flagged the concern of synthetic drugs affecting humanity.

"For hundreds of years, humankind has lived side by side with drugs. There tends to be a stable level of consumption, stable level of lethality or seriousness of addiction, and they tend to be organic. It uses farms and crops and fertilisers. That has changed in the last decade or so, that is really getting accelerated in the last five years, which is now shifting from organic drugs to synthetic drugs," Gupta told PTI on the sidelines of the meeting here on Friday.

He underlined the threat, saying what is needed today is basically "a chemistry set, a room and an internet" and one could create "some of the most lethal, potent and dangerous drugs in the world".

"That Pandora's box has been opened and you can use pretty much this type of things, precursor chemicals to create these," Gupta said, adding that any country that has a large pharmaceutical industry, a large chemical industry is going to be subjected to diversion, subjected to "co-opting by bad actors for profits and creating these substances".

A synthetic drug is a drug with properties and effects similar to a known hallucinogen or narcotic drug. These include amphetamines, methamphetamine and ecstasy (MDMA).

Gupta, the first medical practitioner to serve as the director of the National Drug Control Policy, also spoke of the staggering number of deaths due to drug overdose that was earlier reported in the US.

"In the US, when President Biden and Vice President (Kamala) Harris came into office, we were seeing a 31-per cent increase in overdose deaths per year, year after year, with across hundreds of thousands of deaths a year," he recalled.

The latest data from the CDC, however, shows a 12.7-per cent decline, "the most historic decline that has ever happened in the history of the US", Gupta said, adding that the trend is ongoing for six months now.

He underlined that the issue of drugs affects people in India, affects economy and national security and opportunities, and it is a public health crisis.

"The biggest challenge is to recognise that and move together, not only to help and support the people of the two countries but develop ways to help the world overall globally," he said.

To collectively combat the shared challenge of synthetic-drug use, the US launched the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats last year.

Sharing the progress made under the framework and its three pillars, Gupta said the first pillar is obviously countering the illicit production and trafficking of drugs. Clearly, there has been "a lot of cooperation" between the two countries, both on land and in the seas, he added.

The second pillar is advancing a sustainable and holistic public health partnership when it comes to addiction and mental health and other aspects. Clearly, a lot of conversation has happened around those aspects and "how do we look at prevention, harm reduction and treatment", Gupta said.

"People are suffering in both the countries. Obviously, we see the Nasha Mukti Abhiyan here, and part of that is very critical, and India is leading the way in not only talking about it, but actually acting on it," he added.

The White House Director of National Drug Policy also underlined that it builds on the 60 years of record partnership on public health between the two countries.

"The third one is advancing a secure and growing pharmaceutical supply chain with full integrity and that is also important, and we have had a number of engagements with both the Indian pharmaceuticals, manufacturers' associations, IDMA, IPA, pharmacy associations, a number of those engagements already, both with the private sector as well as the government of India counterparts," he added.

Asked how will this framework be executed on the ground, Gupta said for each of these pillars, there will be work groups and work group streams, sub-work groups, and their will be co-chairs of each work groups.

There will be agencies leading each of those work groups and sub-work groups, and they will address each one of those at a time.

The top US official said artificial intelligence will play a "critical role" in combatting the drug menace by aiding intelligence and law-enforcement agencies as well as in the treatment related to drug addiction.

"So in various ways, first of all on the supply side, AI could be critical in helping us figuring out whether it is the transportation, production, trafficking.... It can help and point and add to the intelligence otherwise, law enforcement, identifying those, so we could make more efforts," he said.

On the treatment side, right now, there are only three FDA-approved treatments for opioid addiction in the US and those treatments are used worldwide, Gupta said.

"Developed identification of molecules and development of molecules, those are critical, to developing and doing R&D (research and development) for new medications, not just for opioids but also for stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine. That part, academia partnership, R&D partnership between the two countries, will be critical to use the existing and newer AI techniques," he added.

India is a leader in technology and the US partnership in that is an important aspect for both the countries, how they can develop and grow "not only for the people of the country, but also for the world", Gupta said.

On September 21, when Biden and Modi met in Wilmington in the US, they affirmed that the US-India Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership, the defining partnership of the 21st century, is decisively delivering on an ambitious agenda that serves the global good.