World Anti-Drugs Day:

Hard drug abuse - the need for preventive action
 

B. Anton Jeyanathan Rtd. DIG (Sri Lanka Police)

The year 2012 has upgraded our country as a demanding country of every known narcotic drug produced/cultivated in our country and produced in the drug supplying countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, Thailand and Mexico. In the days gone by, in the 1950s and 1960s, the only narcotic drugs detected by the Police and demanded by the drug dependents were Cannabis, Ganja grown in our own country and Opium, which was smuggled from India. During this period the Galle Face Green was a popular gathering place for tourists, pimps, prostitutes etc.

It was a well known fact that pimps who approached foreigners asked them in broken English “You want boys, girls or grass?”. That was when Cannabis was the drug of choice by foreigners and locals.

Year by year Heroin entered the market and up to about 2010 Heroin became the choice drug of locals and foreigners and it was also the drug used by terrorist organizations to amass illegal wealth for their destructive activities.

Poisonous drugs

Cannabis/Ganja which is the only drug produced in this country is a much used drug by the lowest to the highest, uneducated as well as educated.

Even in this product, like the choice of all consumers who prefer foreign goods as against the local goods, there are users who are demanding and preferring Kerala Ganja. You name the drugs which are available in the world market, it is available for consumption in our country.

Here I would reproduce below, with the courtesy of the Police Narcotics Bureau the detections made of the types and quantity of drugs during the year 2010 to 2011. Heroin, Cocaine, Hashish and Methamphetamine were detected in large quantities, which clearly indicates the demand for such poisonous drugs is on the increase. (See table)

Victims

The users who have become addicted to such drugs are on the increase and the victims are mostly the youths who are misled by false perceptions of the use of such drugs. The youths of today, the leaders of tomorrow, are being lured and destroyed by the unscrupulous drug dealers who are only bent on amassing illegal money.

The wealth derived from such lucrative, illegal business is stashed by the financiers and drug lords without declaring to the government which destabilizes the economy of our country. The large amount of black money available in the possession of such persons is being used for illegal, anti-social activities by members of the underworld who are at the back and call of politicians.

Money laundering is being brazenly carried out to convert this 'black money' into 'white money'.

Preventive action

The Law Enforcement Agencies should focus on preventive action by relentlessly campaigning and conducting propaganda activities against the dangers of the use of drugs, especially among the school going children and the youth.

The Sri Lanka Police - Nugegoda Division, in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Battaramulla is conducting an Anti-Drugs march and campaign for about 600 schoolchildren from six different schools in the Talangama, Wellampitiya and Welikada Police Station areas under the guidance of the DIG Western Province South and the SSP Nugegoda, to be held today June 26, 2012, the UN declared World Anti-Drugs Day.

These types of campaigns should not be confined to one day, but should be continuously conducted to prevent the demand for more drugs, and reduce the supply line.

The Police Narcotics Bureau is the only specialized Agency established by the Police Headquarters who is engaged in the prevention, detection of drugs by drug offenders.

The Police Narcotics Bureau must be strengthened by way of personnel, vehicles and other modern equipment to conduct preventive educational programmes, to conduct detections, apprehend and prosecute the financiers and the drug Lords who are the real enemies of society, who unfortunately, are never apprehended, and who live luxurious lives at the expense of thousands of drug dependents.