By Thomas Scaria

Mangaluru, Oct. 6, 2021: We hear a lot about drugs these days. Media is filled with stories of drug seizures and arrests. Most stories glorify and sensationalize drug trade and attract more youngsters to the dazzling world of substance. They also act as a marketing strategy.

People have almost forgotten the 3,000 kilo heroin seized recently from Adani’s Mundra Port in Gujarat, western India. They are now after a few grams of drugs allegedly caught from Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan. Earlier, the story of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh ran for almost a year. Many heroes and heroines in Bollywood could be into drugs. Stories about their drug parties definitely attract our youngsters.

The Covid-19 pandemic has broken down most traditional businesses. Hundreds of thousands have become jobless in the past two years. Some “work from home mode” and lead a boring life. The boredom and the availability of too much time have led many to drugs. Those who could not join with the multimillion business opportunities such as making sanitizers and masks, providing oxygen cylinders and hospital beds and conducting RTPCR tests, have turned to the drug trade, a multibillion business that grew side by side, and busted all records in India: the Drugs.

Even the police say what they catch is just the tip on an iceberg. When one container of 3,000 kg drug is caught, 100 containers escape. Where do they go? Who consumes them? Only Bollywood?

Unemployed youths have found a new job in drug peddling and pushing. They also get addicted to the process. Or, it could be vice versa. They get addicted first and do the only job they are qualified — drug peddling. It works like a multilevel market strategy. The drug users and peddlers grow into a multimillion business with the simple practice of “each one catches three.”

The pushers who become drug users eventually have no option but to reach out to new consumers. So the link grows, and our “fully privatized ports” efficiently allow smooth passage.

Now, who is being caught? The jails all over the world are filled with drug pushers or peddlers. Most are drug users themselves, who require treatment, not punishment. The situation is the same in many countries. But who are these people? They are the ultimate victims of big players – the last link in the multilevel market. Our law is happy giving statistics of people arrested and punished, when the real culprits easily escape the law.

The real players remain untouched. Big dealers pass through every gate. They only lose a container now and then. Do we get them in our net? What happened to the 3,000 kg heron caught from Mundra port? Did they catch the one who sent it and the one who was supposed to receive it? To cover up all, we have an innocent looking Aryan now.

The most expensive business in the world is drugs. There are legal drugs like medicines, and illegal drugs like heroin. Both are growing almost equally in the world. Both are managed by multi billionaires with “all season gate passes.”

India is a vulnerable country of drug victimization.

1. First, its geographical placement between the “golden triangle” and the “golden crescent” makes it vulnerable. Most drugs caught in India have come from either the golden crescent (Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan) or the golden triangle (Burma, Thailand and Laos).

2. The loopholes in the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985: Many people, who can engage an expensive lawyer, easily escape from the law and only the poor drug user or peddlers are kept behind the bar. The first time you are caught, you have a lesser punishment.

3. Absence of rigorous punishment: NDPS Act does not advocate capital punishment. Many Arab countries and some in our neighborhood don’t believe in feeding drug peddlers in their prisons. They have capital punishment. Therefore, drug lords choose India to be the safest place to trade in drugs. This attracts many to get into the business because they would enough for generations if and when they are caught and convicted.

4. Too much population with no jobs: One strength and weakness of India is its ever increasing population. This is both good and bad. Good, as we have more people to work and improve our country. Bad, we have more mouths to feed. This feeding requires jobs. But sadly, we do not generate enough jobs. So, they turn to the risky but rewarding job of drug pushing and peddling.

5. Corrupt politicians and corrupt bureaucracy: Corruption leads to catastrophe. It destroys all our gains. It leads to organized crimes. It leads to autocracy, and of course, to drugs.

Drugs have been around us from time immemorial. It was part of most of our culture and religious customs. We can remember the smoke of cannabis emanating from our spiritual sages and gurus, but they were all just raw forms taken from nature. Not the synthetic forms we see today. The modern drugs are made to make you an addict, enslave and kill you. The drugs are from nature, but converted into a synthetic form.

Look at the etiology of some of the drugs, cannabis comes from ganja plants, tobacco comes from tobacco plants, opium and heroin from poppy plants, cocaine from coca plants, ecstasy from mushrooms, and alcohol from fermented fruits and vegetables.

If our farmers, who are at the verge of suicides, turn to the cultivation of these natural crops, can we blame them? In Afghanistan, most farmers are already into opium cultivation and India has become their market place.

Mangaluru-based Thomas Scaria, a de-addiction specialist and trainer with a doctorate in psychology, has worked with the Colombo Plan Drug Advisory Program and collaborated with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. He has worked in Afghanistan for two years from 2014. He began his deaddiction works with the founding of Link, a center in Mangaluru for rescue and rehabilitation of addicts in 1992.)