Kochi stands second in number of drug abuse cases in the country: Rishi Raj Singh

After curbs on liquor and strict enforcement by the Excise Department, Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) are fast taking hold across Kerala on aggressive marketing – offering our teens a high.

With nearly 30% of the liquor shops winding up their operation in Kerala on account of a Supreme Court order, the State appears to be facing a potential public health crisis with a sharp rise in instances of drug abuse, bootlegging, and illicit brewing. The number of drug abuse cases have registered a four-fold rise during the past 10 months when compared to 2014 and Excise sleuths on Thursday seized drugs worth Rs.83.5 lakh and arrested a Kochi native in this connection.

Since June 2016, the Excise Department in Kerala has logged about 3,600 cases under the NDPS Act from all districts and arrested 3,900 persons in this connection. During the period, the department also carried out 1.27 lakh raids, registered 23,600 Abkari cases, and made 22,000 arrests.

Addressing a news conference here on Thursday, Rishi Raj Singh, the Excise Commissioner, a bulk of the synthetic drugs reaching the State were being sourced from destinations such as Goa and Mumbai while Telengana and Tamil Nadu accounted for a majority of the ganja consignments flowing to Kerala through the border check-posts.

‘‘There is a definite case of more people taking to drugs and these figures paint a frightening picture of the grip the culture exerts on the young. Such is the number of cases detected here that as per the National Crime Records Bureau, Kochi stands second only to Amritsar in terms of the highest number of drug abuse cases in the country,’’ he said.

In his opinion, the narcotic rackets operating in Kerala were primarily targeting the youngsters and migrant labourers — who together constituted around 70 lakh of the State’s total population.

The volume of synthetic drugs seized over the last 10 months included 135 gm of brown sugar, 2,573 nitrocepam tablets, in addition to 813 kg of ganja and 2,892 ganja plants.

Besides drugs, statistics also point to a sharp rise in the activities of bootlegging and illicit brewing with the sleuths so far seizing around 10,400 litres of illicit liquor and 2,780 litres of spirit. The volume of Indian Made Foreign Liquor seized stood around 34,600 litres, in addition to 1.48 lakh litres of vash, 10,200 litres of toddy and 22,200 litres of `arishtam.’

The department seized 1,420 vehicles used for bootlegging and realised a fine of around ₹2 crore for cases registered under the Abkari Act. Meanwhile, the volume of banned tobacco products seized during the period stood around 300 tonnes.

The startling numbers apart, officials were yet to confirm whether this rise in drug abuse cases was due to a curb on the sale of liquor. ‘‘We have taken up a proposal to conduct a study on this by a team comprising a psychologist, sociologist, eduction expert, narcotic expert and food safety expert. The study is slated to commence as soon as the proposal gets the Planning Commission’s nod.