Drug abuse rising, start debate to decriminalise
Over half the people who use opioids around the world are in Asia and they account for one in every hundred Asians. The 2023 report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says South-west Asia had one of the highest incidences of drug abuse in 2021—an estimated 3.2 percent of the population. Unsurprisingly, the young remain the most vulnerable to abuse. The challenge of addressing the issue is huge in India given that we are the world’s youngest country. Around two-thirds of our population are below the age of thirty-five. Nearly two-fifths are aged thirteen to thirty-five years; the age profile of a typical drug abuser is in this age bracket, says the UN office, with initiation in the teens.
The number of drug seizures and volumes seized are going up at an alarming rate across India. The modus operandi for trafficking in bulk and peddling to consumers are changing. The use of the darknet—a part of the internet that requires specific software or protocols for access—for placing orders and cryptocurrency for payment pose new challenges to law enforcers. Couriers are delivering drugs to the doorstep. Synthetic drugs have become increasingly dominant because they are cheap to make and easy to deliver. They are not tied to geographically- fixed crops such as opium and use a wide array of ingredients that can be sourced easily. Methamphetamine is the world’s biggest illegally manufactured synthetic drug; criminals are devising novel synthesis techniques for them, establishing new bases of operations to hoodwink regulators. The biggest concern is that higher education institutions have become breeding grounds for abuse. Drugs on campus are a disturbing and growing reality—they are more easily available and the average teen has a higher buying power.
Possession and use of commercial quantities of banned drugs are non-bailable offences under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The Act criminalises the offender, who is also the victim of abuse. This is where the dilemma and stigma lie. The debate on decriminalisation has not taken off in earnest in India. The argument is that it will not prevent people from going down the abyss. The positive side is that people may get timely medical intervention with the right monitoring and control. Regulatory responses alone will not wipe out the menace; perhaps nothing will. We need to look within to reach out to those who may have crossed a line in the search of pleasure.