India or Bharat is a south-Asian country known for its oldest civilizations in the world with different cultures, heritage, traditions, and religions. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great acquainted people of India with the first narcotic substance-opium by revealing its medicinal usage, and by the year 1200, various ancient Indian medicine books recognized its healing properties and started suggesting its medicinal usage but eventually people started consuming it for enjoyment purposes.

After the increased demand for opium, people started cultivating it on the western coastal line of India by the year 1300, and by the year 1720, India was exporting opium to the entire world. The trafficking of narcotic substances in India from neighboring countries (Nepal and Pakistan) commenced in the year 1930 when the colonial government limited opium’s cultivation and uses to only medical purposes after observing its ill-effects on people who used it for pleasure.

As the inflow rate for narcotic substances increased, the Government of India in the year 1985 repealed all the previous acts and enacted a new stern law called The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act, 1985, prohibiting the manufacturing, selling, importing, exporting and consumption of drugs and only allowing its cultivation to meet medicinal requirements. The Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988 was also introduced by the Government of India in the year 1988, which allows detention of persons suspected to be involved in illicit trafficking of drugs.

Today, one of the major issues which are being faced by enforcement agencies is the trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, which were earlier a concern to a limited number of countries but nowadays it is a menace for the world. Talking about the process of trafficking, it involves the cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, and then selling to its consumers. Hence, it requires a network of individual persons, local mobs, and international criminal organizations, all creating a syndicate or cartel to traffic drugs. As India shares its land border with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, and Afghanistan.

This exposes it towards illicit trafficking of narcotic and psychotropic substances. It has been seen that India is both a terminus and a conveyance path for narcotics produced in the Golden Crescent region (Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan) and the Golden Triangle region (Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar) with the help of already existing networks of smugglers operating on the borderlines to smuggle gold and other commodities. Moreover, it has been alleged that India is trafficking various indigenous psychotropic and pharmaceutical chemicals in various parts of the world using these networks.

Talking about the entry routes, the heroin and hashish produced in the Golden Crescent region enter India’s territory from the India-Pakistan border in the North-West Region, exploiting the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, Amritsar in Punjab, and Sunderbani in Jammu & Kashmir, from where they are easily sold to consumers in adjacent states. I recall from my visit to a suburb in Himachal Pradesh a couple of years ago, that how narcotic and psychotropic substances were easily made available to its consumers and on the other hand, a proper meal for the day was hard to find.

Moving further towards the North Region, hashish and marijuana destined to Lucknow, Faizabad, Gorakhpur, and Patna are easily intruded from the India-Nepal border using road networks along the Champaran district of Bihar and Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh.

In the East of India, neighbor Myanmar is the largest producer of opium in the Golden Triangle region from where opium is trafficked into the states of Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland through the India-Myanmar border. On the other hand, it has been alleged that opioids are smuggled from India to Bangladesh through the India-Bangladesh border using railroad networks.

As India is surrounded by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean to the south further make it vulnerable to the trafficking of narcotic substances. The east and west coast of India are more openly used to smuggle heroin from the Golden Crescent region into other parts of the world through cargo ships.

Now what’s left is the airports and air routes that are being exploited by traffickers. A specific pattern has been seen by the enforcement agencies between India and the capital of Ethiopia – Addis Ababa. The African and Nigerian drug cartels use the Delhi- Addis Ababa and Mumbai- Addis Ababa air routes to smuggle heroin in India, whereas, all other major airports in India are exploited to smuggle narcotic substances in South and East Asian markets.

As said by an intellectual person that Drug is a poison, it provides short term enjoyment with long term pain,the pain here is not only suffered by the person taking narcotic substances but by his family too. Further, I would like to add that now it’s time for consumers of narcotic and psychotropic substances to understand the famous saying in India that ??? ??????? ???????? (meaning- one should always avoid doing excess as the excess of everything ruins everything) and incline towards living a healthy life.

Award Winning Article Is Written By: Mr.Deepak Sharma

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