NDPS fails to curb Punjab drug menace

In Gurdaspur and Pathankot the share was more than 80%.

In 2009, a notification by the department of revenue assigned punishment under the NDPS Act on the basis of weight of whole drug rather than the pure content of the drug. This has had the effect of many cases of pharmaceutical drug seizures being categorised as commercial rather than intermediate or small quantities. The former category leads to greater convictions with longer sentences as it is seen as drug-peddling rather than possession f or self-consumption.

An example can make this clearer. Benadryl, a common cough syrup basically contains Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide, which works by suppressing the need to cough. A 100 ml bottle of the cough syrup contains 300 mg of the drug in it. If Dextromethorphan Hydrobromide were listed as substance used for pharmaceutical drug abuse, the quantity seized from the accused would matter in the case.

Before 2009, recovery of a 100 ml bottle would have been treated as seizure of 300 mg of the drug, but after the change in law it would be treated as a seizure of weight of the entire cough syrup.

As can be seen in Chart 1, Punjab’s share in all-india NDPS crimes and convictions started rising at a very fast rate in the period after 2009. The report also shows that pharmaceutical cases have had a greater share of commercial use category and hence longer sentences than narcotic cases in the state (Chart 3).

What makes things even worse is the fact that sentencing in pharmaceutical cases is extremely arbitrary in the courts. According to the report, four cases in Patiala district, where 500 tablets of diphenoxylate were seized saw sentencing ranging between three months to three years.

While the state has been handing out disproportionate punishments to accused, who are probably drug-users (many of them even first-time offenders) rather than peddlers, it has done little in terms of rehabilitating those who have become addicted to use of drugs. The report shows that there was an acute dearth of rehabilitating infrastructure, taken as number of beds in de-addiction facilities, in comparison to number of cases registered under the NDPS Act in 2014 (Chart 4).

What is even worse is that even the limited infrastructure which is available is not being used effectively due to lack of focus on rehabilitation in the criminal justice system.

The report says, “Ss. 39 and 64A of the NDPS Act allow people caught with small quantities of drugs, or with drugs for personal consumption, to opt for de-addiction treatment in a government-approved centre instead of imprisonment or pros- ecution. But responses to RTIS we filed clearly establish that between 2013 and 2015, no person brought before the court in Punjab was directed to de-addiction and rehabilitation through the courts. Various interviews with judges and lawyers revealed that this provision for diverting addicts was mostly unknown to the legal practitioners and judges.”

Reacting to the report, state health minister Brahm Mohindra said: “It’s a sensitive issue and I will only comment once I will access the entire report,”.

Special Task Force (STF) chief Harpreet Sidhu could not immediately be reached for a comment.