The fight against the evil menace of drug trafficking and addiction is not merely statistical accounts of seizures of illicit drugs and arrests of traffickers and peddlers. The real challenge is to protect the vulnerable students and youths from falling prey to the peddlers and prevent them from becoming addicted. Guwahati police rescued a dozen addicted youths from Khanapara in the past two consecutive days, after a video showing the group of highly intoxicated youngsters lying on the steps of the Interstate Bus Terminus went viral, holding out the mirror to the society to reflect on the collective failure. The rescued youth have been sent to rehabilitation centres, but it is time to reflect deeply if the society’s role ends there. Rehabilitation and deaddiction are just symptomatic treatments of the chronic illness of addiction, which perpetually remains unaddressed. The deafening silence of the society over why the youth in our society fall prey to addiction has reduced the collective response to the confines of rehabilitation centres. The rehabilitation centres put in their best efforts to help the addicts turn over a new leaf but cannot address the larger issue of prevention. It raises a larger question about the inclusivity of the classrooms. Has the teaching-learning ecosystem failed to include every single student and care for their emotional wellbeing? Apart from helping them gain knowledge and shaping their career goals, the classrooms and homes providing safe spaces for students and adolescents to share their doubts and confusion and seek clarity about the questions about life and future confronting them are critical to helping them assess the influence of peers and segregate the good from the bad and resist peer pressure for indulging in harmful activities like substance abuse, cybercrime, etc. A large section of the society views drug addiction as a combination of illicit trafficking and individual failure in life and fails to connect it to other factors like unemployability, broken families, peer pressure, deprivation from quality education, displacement, forced migration, etc. This explains why the society in the state has failed to play its part when law enforcement agencies are relentlessly mounting pressure on drug trafficking networks by busting their gangs, making huge recoveries through synergised operations. Some of the steps initiated by the central government to prevent the illegal production and trade of drugs include: constitution of a 4-tier Narco-Coordination Centre (NCORD) mechanism which enables coordination among Central and State agencies;establishment of Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) in all States/Union Territories; setting up of a task force on Darknet and Crypto-Currency; empowering Border Guarding Forces and Railway Protection Force with the NDPS Act for enforcement at borders and railroutes; financial assistance for strengthening anti-narcotics units and creation of National Integrated Database on Arrested Narco-Offenders (NIDAAN) portal to support investigations and proactive policing. Increased seizures and arrests tell the success stories of strengthened measures, but it also indicates the desperate attempts by drug traffickers to keep the supply chain intact through new routes by targeting vulnerable sections in society and pushing the demands. They know well that as long as dropout continues in schools and colleges, agrarian and economic crises create uncertainties in life among those youth without proper guidance and skills to find alternative livelihoods, and failed marriages and broken families push young people to the margins of economic and emotional wellbeing, they will be able to trap such vulnerable youth in an abysmal spiral of drug addiction. The extension of Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan (NBMA) to all districts across the country demonstrated the government’s commitment, but the provision of Rs 10 lakh for each district is quite less for Assam and other states in the northeast region given the magnitude of the problem, where porous borders add to its complexities. The objective of NBMA is to reach out to masses and spread awareness about substance abuse in educational campuses, identifying and reaching out to dependent populations and focusing on counselling and treatment facilities in hospitals and rehabilitation centres. Pathetic condition and violation of norms leading to closure of some rehabilitation centres in the state highlight the gaps of medical oversight in rehabilitation despite the surge in addiction, which does not augur well for a state grappling with the problem of rising addiction. The society abandoning the families struggling to help their loved ones give up addiction only exposes a deeper crisis of lack of community care for people desperately needing it the most, which makes more people vulnerable to illicit drug trade. Extending a helping hand to such families instead of remaining indifferent or stigmatising them to overcome their trouble can help build a compassionate society in which the emotional wellbeing of everyone is prioritised. The problem cannot be solved in silos by law enforcement agencies, rehabilitation centres or awareness building. The convergence of enforcement, rehabilitation support and community care to sustain recovery is the panacea to the problem of the alarming rise in drug addiction.