Government sets ball rolling for national survey on drug use

The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has initiated a process to undertake a comprehensive survey on drug abuse and addiction.

The previous survey on drug abuse that was carried out in 2001, more than 15 years ago, was only on a pilot basis taken from smaller samples and locations throughout the country. Though the proposal came in 2015, the ministry failed to appoint an agency to take up the survey. A newly constituted committee and the department are hopeful of finishing the exhaustive survey and file a report by end of 2018, sources said.

Setting the ball rolling, the government recently held a nationwide meeting in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, where all stakeholders such as officials from the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), police, Customs, Excise and doctors were invited, and suggestions were taken on how to go about with the survey.

“Our (NCB) officials, along with other stakeholders from our zone in Bengaluru, too attended the meeting and shared our insight on the scenario of drug abuse and addiction in the three Southern states (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana),” said Sunil Kumar Sinha, Zonal Director, NCB (Bengaluru) to DH. The comprehensive survey on drug abuse and addiction will help policymakers to make decisions on curbing this menace. It will also give the government a fair idea on the number of rehabilitation and de-addiction centres to be set up in the country.

The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 2012, provides for conducting surveys on drug use and abuse every five years. However, no such study has been conducted so far. According to a report in August 2017, the number of people affected by drugs is around 7.21 crore in the country.

The last survey in 2001 revealed that over one crore people in India were addicted to alcohol, 23 lakh to cannabis, and five lakh to opiates. It also reported severe lack of de-addiction centres. Only four such centres existed for women while there was none for juveniles.