Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

State to launch anti-drug awareness campaign

Thiruvananthapuram: The State government will bring out pamphlets to create public awareness against drug abuse. The government has prepared the educative material in consultation with Alcohol and Drug Information Centre-India, a non-profit organisation involved in creating awareness against the abuse of drugs and alcohol.

The State police are also planning a separate programme to insulate campuses of educational institutions from the drug menace. Students and teachers will be advised how to recognise symptoms of drug abuse. They will also be told about the services available in society, including those rendered by the police, to deal with the drug menace.

The police will also put in place a drug abuse monitoring system by drawing information from hospitals, college campuses, treatment centres, welfare agencies and other sources. The data will help the police streamline its intervention strategies. The police were also preparing a list of persons involved in drug cases for keeping a tab on their activities. Steps will be taken to improve the functioning of Narcotic Cells in nine police districts, including Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.

Law enforcers said Kerala with its long coastline was a transhipment point for drugs, mainly heroin, to the outside world.

The drug seizures made by agencies such as the Narcotic Control Bureau, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and police account only for a fraction of the actual quantity of the drug smuggled through Kerala to Sri Lanka and the Gulf.

A small quantity of the heroin sourced from opium-producing areas in Afghanistan and North India were peddled in the State for funding the smuggling operations. The police said that collecting intelligence on gangs dealing with narcotic substances was high on the agenda of the police. The police said that deaths due to drug overdose had been reported from Varkala, Kovalam and Kochi. In 2004, two foreign nationals had died due to heroin overdose in a lodge at Varkala beach resort.

A random survey on drug abuse by the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had found that injecting drugs, including heroin, in diluted form and pharmaceutical products containing addictive substances such as synthetic opiates, was high as 67 per cent in Thiruvananthapuram. The survey said the average age of initiation into ‘injecting drug abuse’ varied between 15 and 28 in the country with “Thiruvananthapuram at the low end and Jamshedpur and Kolkata at the higher end.” The study said that cannabis was the “most common first drug of abuse” with a share of 40 per cent followed by alcohol (33 per cent). Inhalation of chemical solvents such as turpentine, liquid shoe-polish, adhesives, aerosols and petrol was rampant among school students in Kerala. An increasing number of school students are seeking de-addiction treatment for alcohol and tobacco abuse.

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