As militancy made headlines, drug use spiked in Kashmir
The subcontinent was dealing with an opioids boom in the 1980s, but Kashmir stayed trouble-free. Now, the state is witnessing a very different situation
The subcontinent was dealing with an opioids boom in the 1980s, but Kashmir stayed trouble-free. Now, the state is witnessing a very different situation
Drug addiction is a bigger challenge than militancy in Jammu & Kashmir today, the state’s director general of police, Shesh Paul Vaid, told a news agency on November 16, 2017. Drug seizures have increased and the number of cases being registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, for peddling and smuggling of banned substances are rising, said Vaid.
Over the last “five to six years”, 968 quintals, or 96.8 tonnes, equivalent to 12 truckloads (at 8 tonnes per truck), of narcotic drugs have been seized, the state’s home department revealed —in an order issued on September 25, 2017— asking police officers to follow standard operating procedure while dealing with cases registered under the NDPS Act.
Despite the seizure, “the problem has not received due attention of investigators and the prosecutors,” the order said. “As a result the number of acquittals in such cases greatly outnumbered the convictions, as for every conviction there are about nine acquittals.”
Between 2014 and August 2017, 118 kg of heroin was seized, according to Vaid. In the same period, as many as 18,435 drug addicts reported for treatment at the two hospitals associated with the Government Medical College (GMC) in Srinagar and a Drug Deaddiction Centre (DDC) run by the Jammu & Kashmir police in the city, official data at the two hospitals and DDC revealed.
The numbers may not seem alarming for a region with a population of 7 million but only a small percentage of those who are addicted land up for treatment, Muzaffar Khan, director of the DDC, pointed out.
“In the early 1980s, when doctors at a Srinagar Hospital found that a patient was a heroin addict, it was such an unusual experience that the matter was brought to the notice of the then chief minister,” said Arshad Hussain, a leading psychiatrist in Kashmir who treats mental health patients at the two GMC hospitals.
The subcontinent was dealing with an opioids boom in the 1980s, but Kashmir stayed trouble-free, Hussain pointed out. Now, he and his colleagues are witnessing a very different situation, he added.
Vaid’s statement did not elicit any response from political parties. This could imply widespread knowledge of the problem. It could be also because of the general cynicism with which citizens here greet statements made by security agencies, often accused of twisting Kashmir’s political narrative. But the state’s judiciary and civil administration have expressed concern over the growing drug menace. On August 20, 2017, the Jammu & Kashmir high court directed the state government to “revisit the issue relating to control of drugs as per the experience gathered from other states and various international forums dealing with the drug addiction”.
In September 2017, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti directed senior police officials to use the most draconian laws, including the Public Safety Act (PSA) — a law under which a person can be detained without trial for up to two years — against those involved in the cultivation and smuggling of drugs.
Poppy fields everywhere The most important reason for growing drug addiction is the easy availability of drugs, said Hussain. “There are some rural areas where buses do not go but opioids do. And cannabis is available more easily than cigarettes,” he said. “We need purposeful policing if we have to stop the circulation of drugs.”
That poppy and cannabis cultivation is spreading is confirmed by official agencies as well. “Some years ago, poppy cultivation was restricted to Kashmir’s southern parts. But, poppy cultivation has now spread to the northern and central regions as well,” said Shamim Ahmad, an officer with the state’s excise department. He leads a team that is tasked with destroying poppy and cannabis crops.
Many farmers in southern Kashmir have been growing poppy to supplement their incomes since at least the late 1980s, finding a ready market in nearby states such as Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Law enforcement agencies have been taking action, even destroying crops, but they haven’t been able to prevent the spread of poppy cultivation in the state.
Ahmad and his seniors at the excise department have built an extensive network of informers, many of them volunteers. Since 2008, the team has destroyed poppy crops over 2,080 acres and cannabis crops over 5,365 acres, mostly in south Kashmir.
But farmers manage to conceal poppy or cannabis among other crops.
In 2016, 180 kg of charas (a product from the resin of cannabis plant), 546 kg of fuki (a powdery substance made from poppy seed) and 4,161 kg of poppy straw (the husk left after opium is extracted from poppy pods) was seized, police claim. This is in addition to seizures of synthetic drugs such as heroin and brown sugar. In 2016, more than 550 cases involving synthetic drugs were registered. What’s more, there is now a thriving reverse trade in drugs — heroin and brown sugar, prepared in laboratories elsewhere, are making their way into Kashmir.
Between 1980 and 1988, there were just 189 reported cases of drug addiction in Kashmir, according to a 1993 paper by psychiatrists Mushtaq Margoob and KS Dutta. But even then, the researchers had warned that “urgent steps must be taken to curb” the problem “before it is too late”.
Hussain is also troubled by the number of children who are seeking treatment for solvent addiction. There were more than 200 children addicted to solvents, mostly under 18 years of age, who had come to the two GMC centres over the last two years. Some of them had also switched over to drugs, he added.
Many farmers in southern Kashmir have been growing poppy to supplement their incomes since at least the late 1980s
Growing unemployment and drug use Relentless conflict, stress and collapsing governance can often lead to rising levels of drug addiction in a population, as IndiaSpend had