With India emerging as one of the major hotspots of illegal narcotics trade, the number of drug users in the country has spiralled, particularly over the past decade. And given India’s demographic profile, the most damaged are children and youth – Archana N, Mini P & Cynthia John Perhaps the worst kept secret of 21st century India is that the drugs and narcotics trade is one of the country’s biggest businesses. Endowed with the world’s youngest child and adolescent population worldwide — an estimated 700 million Indians are below 24 years of age and the country’s median age is 29 (cf. 38.3 in the US and 38.4 in China), a 3,000-km coastline, porous land borders, a pathetic police-people (144:100,000) and judges-citizens (19.4:100,000) ratios, it’s unsurprising that transnational drug-running mafias have targeted India as a major hub of drugs and narcotic substances. The size and depth of the India market for 200 drugs and substances prohibited by the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, has transformed India into the world’s third largest market for narcotic substances — defined as “harmful or hazardous psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs that, when taken in or administered into one’s system, affect mental processes, e.g, perception, consciousness, cognition or mood and emotions”. The widespread usage of drugs and narcotics in India has been dramatically highlighted with the death by suicide of young Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput on June 14 — reportedly the outcome of a deadly cocktail of narcotic drugs and clinical depression. This young actor’s suicide has opened up a Pandora’s Box highlighting the prevalence of a thriving illicit drugs trade in India and the country’s motion pictures industry — the largest worldwide — in particular. According to a 2018 annual report by United Nations-backed International Narcotics Control Board, this young nation is a major hotspot of the global illicit drugs trade for a gamut of narcotics ranging from marijuana to newer synthetic opioids such as tramadol, and designer drugs like methamphetamine. India accounted for 6 percent of the world’s cannabis herb (marijuana aka ganja) seizures in 2016 (nearly 300 tonnes), and reported even higher seizures in 2017 (353 tonnes) — a 20 percent increase, says the report of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime. Unsurprisingly, with 21st century India having transformed into a major hotspot of illegal narcotics trade, the number of drug users in the country has spiralled, particularly over the past decade. In 2004, a nationwide ‘drug survey’ conducted by the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment reported that 2 million people were using opioids. Fifteen years later in 2019, a follow-up survey conducted by the ministry reports that the number has risen to 22 million. More disturbingly, heroin has replaced natural opioids (opium and poppy husk) as the most commonly abused narcotic. Given India’s demographic profile, the most damaged group is children and youth. According to a recent study published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry, by the time most children reach class IX, half…
