BENGALURU: In line with the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction that was released by the Centre in January, the state’s Health and Family Welfare Department intends to create a state drug action plan for all the 30 districts in the State. This will be done in coordination with National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS). The proposed action plan will put forth a road map on what the State must do in coordination with various stakeholders to raise awareness on drug-use disorders, prevention and identifying and managing cases for de-addiciton.
“The aim is to make the State self-sufficient in care of drug-use disorders. Awareness and early intervention is part of this. To know what the situation on the ground is, we need to have an assessment. For this, a household survey has been suggested in the action plan. This has to ideally happen once every 10 years. Apart from this, capacity building of teachers, schools, doctors, nurses, medical colleges and hospitals will have to be done as not all are able to handle cases at their levels,” said Dr Arun Kandasamy, Additional Professor, Centre for Addiction Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS.
“The drug action report will focus on tobacco, alcohol, drugs and cyber addiction as well. Intervention is required at juvenile homes, prisons, for sex workers, transgenders and other such special population who are prone to drug use disorders,” Dr Arun added.
The proposal is at a nascent stage and it not decided as to how funds will be allocated for implementing the drug action plan. There is also no deadline on submitting the report as of now. Dr Rajani, deputy director, Mental Health, Health and Family Welfare Department, was not reachable for a comment.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment formulated a five-year National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction.