The Drugs Portent

The Drugs Portent

It seems the vicious and venomous juggernaut of drugs – illegal contraband of substances abused to the point of death – is unstoppable in the Northeast. The situation is getting grimmer by the day. If Manipur was infamous at one point of time for an alarming HIV+ve rate due to intravenous drug abuse among its youth, now it is the turn of Shillong on the one hand and Itanagar on the other – both the State capitals and their neighbouring areas are now home to a swelling drug-addicts populace, thanks to the easy availability of the contraband and the alleged peddlers-police nexus as well. The other day, a report in a Shillong-based daily pointed to the monster of drugs spreading its tentacles in the military set-up too! This is alarming. According to the sources as quoted, there have been instances when armed personnel were found using drugs and were accordingly handed over to the police. If some members of the military have taken to mind alteration by resorting to drugs, this obviously has a bearing on the performance of the military as a collective force in defence of the nation. Drug addiction in Shillong has come to such a pass that addicts would now have no qualms about even killing people for money to purchase their ‘magic’ stuff. A few days back, as reported, a local taxi driver was kidnapped by drug addicts, then money was forcibly taken from him by using his debit card, and then he was brutally killed. Last year, it will be recalled, the Shillong Police had seized about Rs 3 crore worth of a banned drug styled as ‘World is Yours’ or WY.

The situation in Itanagar and its adjoining areas is no less ominous, with reports pouring in of the youth having taken to drugs of all sorts, not just the usual marijuana, and an increasing number of them now being translocated to rehabilitation centres right up to Siliguri. A report from Siliguri – which houses a couple of nationally eminent rehabilitation centres – says that its rehab centres are home to a swelling number of full-blown drug addict cases from Arunachal Pradesh. Sources say that the Banderdewa junction, from where the national highway on the north bank of the Brahmaputra branches out towards Naharlagun and Itanagar, has emerged as a conduit point. Recently, a group of women in Aalo, the headquarters of West Siang district, nabbed a gang of drug peddlers and handed them over to the local police.

What is the way out? Some would say a new drug policy would do, as is envisioned by the Meghalaya government. But what if the synergy between the big fish in the business of drug peddling – the kingpins – and those whose business it must be to protect the youth from falling prey to substance abuse (read ‘police’) only continues to grow and prosper, stealthily bypassing all sorts of policy? Therefore, generation of awareness and counselling right when the problem begins to take roots hold the key. The society as a whole has a huge responsibility too.

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