TO deal with the problem of abuse of synthetic drugs and ‘New Psychotropic Substances’ (NPS), the government is considering generic scheduling of drugs to replace the practice of substance-by-substance scheduling. New psychoactive substances (NPS) are a range of drugs designed to mimic established illicit drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and LSD. According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, there are close to 650 such substances which have been taken note of. In a meeting of the apex government body dealing with drug abuse on November 19, officials decided on a host of measures to curtail such abuse in the country, according to Home Ministry sources. The meeting was held under the aegis of the Narco Coordination Centre, led by Narcotics Control Bureau chief Rakesh Asthana. “The meeting considered out-of-the-box solutions to address the NPS problem by way of analogue/generic scheduling of drugs, instead of substance-by-substance scheduling. It was also decided to accelerate the progress towards extracting opiate alkaloids through the concentrate of poppy straw to avoid the opium route, which is prone to diversion and abuse. The three illicit opium poppy cultivating states of Rajasthan, MP and UP were asked to ensure the complete plough back of lanced poppy straw after extraction of opium,” an MHA statement said. “In particular, the issues related to large-scale heroin trafficking from neighbouring countries, the diversion and abuse of pharmaceutical preparations containing narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, emergence of synthetic drugs and NPS, and issues related to poppy cultivation in the country were discussed,” the MHA said.
