Taking cue from Supreme Court’s decision to ban liquor being served within a radius of 500 metres from national highways, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar kick-started JDU’s MCD election campaign demanding prohibition in the national capital last week. JDU is contesting in over a 100 of the 272 seats. Kumar had made headlines when he banned the sale and consumption of alcohol in Bihar to hold good his pre-election promise from April last year. The JDU leader has been praising his government’s effort to tackle the menace but chooses to turn a blind eye to the natural corollary of a massive spike in drug abuse in the state.

Not many including his alliance partner, Lalu Prasad’s RJD had expected Kumar to fulfil his election promise of prohibiting alcohol in the state. Kumar believes he took the politically sensitive decision of losing out Rs 5,000 crores revenue to ensure Bihar families can get rid of the evils of alcoholism. But the flip side of this drive has been people moving to other psychotropic substances reflected in the rise of narcotic drugs like ganja, bhang and opium. This was admitted by none other than Abdul Jalil Mastan, Bihar’s prohibition minister last year.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar demands full statehood at Delhi https://t.co/3SGCjBadxg — TOI India (@TOIIndiaNews) April 8, 2017

As per statistics available with parliament, the state of Bihar witnessed seizure of ganja (14.37 kg), heroin (1.12 kg), opium (1.97 kg) while it was almost negligible for hashish and poppy husk/straw in 2015. This was the year when Kumar and Prasad won a decisive mandate against BJP in the assembly election. But the figures for 2016 are pretty disturbing where prohibition came into effect from April. Bihar saw a whopping 4862.25 kg ganja, 55 kg hashish, 14.98 kg opium, and 116.20 kg of poppy husk/straw being seized in the state.

Post-prohibition, Bihar a land of milk https://t.co/5DTR4LjKGB (Representative image pic.twitter.com/Sdt5Rikpxg — Times of India (@timesofindia) February 12, 2017

If this is the volume of drugs seized, one shudders to imagine how much is actually being consumed by people in the state. As per reports, nearly 25% of cases in de-addiction centres are related to drug abuse. Kumar has not only lost out on Rs 5,000 crores revenue but also created a new health-hazard in the state. Only the name has changed from alcohol to drug abuse.