The drug menace has gained an alarming proportion in Kerala as indicated by a sharp spike in narcotic, abkari and COTPA cases registered in the state in 2022. The data shows that police registered 24,701 cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act till November 2022, as against 5,695 cases booked in 2021, which shows a jump of 333 per cent. The number of NDPS cases registered by the excise department has grown from 3,922 in 2021 to 6,116 in 2022, showing a jump of 55 per cent.
Apart from this, the cases registered by police under Abkari Act grew from 11,952 in 2021 to 36,485 up to November 2022. But the abkari cases registered by the excise department in 2022 dropped to 18,592 from 19,934 in 2021. In the past seven years, the number of the department’s abkari cases has not surpassed 23,886, recorded in 2016. In 2022, the department had fewer abkari cases (18,592) compared with 2021, when it registered 19,934 cases.
An analysis of excise department data on the drug cases shows that the number of people arrested under the NDPS Act has grown by 87.47 per cent from 2016 to 2022. The growth in the number of cases between 2016 and 2022 was 104 per cent. However, the number of raids recorded only a marginal increase, which means that the same number of raids had led to more cases. In 2016, the raids held by the excise department were 1,39,366 and raids hovered in that figure for the few years that followed, before rising to 1,44,200 in 2022, showing an increase of 3.46 per cent.
In the chart of seized substances, MDMA has emerged as the most-sought-after one over the past seven years. In 2016, the excise department had no recorded seizure of MDMA. In 2017, it seized 107.63 g of MDMA, which jumped to 31,147.6164 g in 2018. But in 2019, the seized quantity came down to 230.01483 g. In 2020, the seized quantity rose to 564.1161 g. Again, a sharp rise was reported in 2021, when the department seized 6,130.5 g of MDMA. In 2022, the seized stuff grew to an all-time high of 7,775.425g.
Methamphetamine, a central nervous system stimulant mainly used as a recreational drug, first figured on the excise radar in 2021, when it seized 88.806 g of the drug. But in 2022, the seizure of this highly addictive stimulant jumped to 2,432.483 grams. While there was a fall in the quantity of ganja seized in 2022 compared with the previous year, the quantities of heroin, charas and hashish have gone up.
COTPA cases related to banned tobacco products have also spiked. The excise department booked only 45,756 COTPA cases in 2016, but the figure rose to 74,604 in 2021 and to 86,114 in 2022. The quantity of seized tobacco products has also gone up. In 2016 only 5,637 kg of banned products were seized by the department, but the figure went up to 32,719 kg in 2021 and to 38,424 kg in 2022.
Additional director-general police and excise commissioner S Ananthakrishnan said that the accessibility of synthetic drugs such as MDMA and LSD had increased. “There is peer pressure (on youngsters) to explore these drugs. There are also misconceptions about the use of these synthetic drugs, which are handy to possess. The drugs reach Kerala from everywhere in the country, but mainly from Bengaluru and Goa,’’ he said.
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The excise commissioner said that most users of the synthetic drugs are aged between 20 and 25. “When we analyse the background of the arrested youths, problems related to parenting seem to have emerged as a common element,’’ he said.
According to a senior police officer, migrant workers from north and northeastern states act as a major channel for smuggling narcotics to Kerala. “While Bengaluru and Goa remain major hubs from where the drugs are being sourced, cannabis is mainly coming via the migrant workers from Odisha, Andhra and Bihar,’’ he said.
The officer said the synthetic drug was popular among the educated and professionals attending DJ parties. “A small quantity of the synthetic drug would give long hours of hallucination. Another factor is the huge profit involved in the dealings of these drugs at all levels’’ said the officer.
The nexus between political parties and drugs has also come to fore recently. Early this month, the CPM in Alappuzha district cracked the whip on a local leader and councillor, A Shanavas, and his aides in connection with the seizure of banned tobacco products worth Rs 1 crore from a truck.
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As per a data submitted by the excise department in the Assembly last month, there have been 287 drug cases in Kerala in the last five years involving people below the age of 21.
A survey conducted by the department showed that cannabis is the main drug used by teenagers. The survey was held among 600 people below the age of 19, all of them either involved in drug offences or who had sought counselling or treatment at de-addiction centres in the state.
The survey’s findings, released by the excise department last Saturday, showed that most teenagers got into the habit of using cannabis through smoking. It said 46 per cent of the surveyed teenagers used drugs more than once a day.
As for the age of first drug abuse, 70 per cent said they first used cannabis between the ages of 10 and 15. Only 20 per cent had their first drug use between the age of 15 and 19. At the same time, 9 per cent of the participants said they had their first drug use even before the age of 10.
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The survey indicated that ganja accounted for 82 per cent of drug abuse among teenagers. While 75.66 per cent of the surveyed teenagers smoked, 64.66 per cent drank alcohol and 25.5 per cent did drugs. Around 77 per cent of those surveyed are currently smokers.
Major hauls
On March 18, 2022, the excise department seized 165 kg of ganja from Palakkad and arrested two people who had allegedly sourced it from Andhra Pradesh. On April 14 that year, the department busted a drug racket in Kozhikode when its officials seized hashish oil reportedly worth Rs 3 crore. Later, in August, two people were arrested in Palakkad with hashish oil worth Rs 5 crore.
In October 2022, DRI officials in Mumbai arrested Vijin Varghese, managing director of Kochi-based Yumito Foods, after they seized 50.2 kg of cocaine–worth Rs 502 crore–from a container carrying imported fruit. He was also involved in a related case in which methamphetamine (ice) and cocaine worth Rs 1,476 crore were found in cartons of oranges imported from South Africa by his company.
