In view of reports about a rise in youngsters from Kochi falling prey to psychedelic drugs, the police have embarked on a partnership build-up initiative to check the trend.
According to P.Vijayan, the new Inspector General of Police, Kochi Range, curbing drug abuse among teens will be one of the key areas of focus for the upcoming “Our responsibility to Children” centre in Kakkanad. “The centre, being established with the support of UNICEF, is expected to be operational in February and will serve as a platform for launching a coordinated effort by all the agencies to curb the menace. Besides preventing children from getting entrapped in the criminal world, the centre will also give the police a chance to review the cases that have been wrongly pursued earlier’’, Mr. Vijayan said.
He spoke of a multi-pronged strategy, targeting both the demand and supply sides of the drug traffic. This would involve cultivating sources among the student community and tracing the drug trafficking networks, located mostly outside the State. “There has been a drastic change in the pattern of consumption from natural psychotropic substances to chemical compounds as is evident from recent cases. The majority of these high-end drugs originate from laboratories outside Kerala’’, Mr.Vijayan said.
Anti-narcotic officials have noticed a recent surge in the number of youngsters visiting hot-beds of party drugs such as Goa and Bengaluru. The youngsters, who usually visit these places for purchasing drugs for just one occasion, get caught up in rackets and soon turn carriers for making easy money.
Officials attribute the boom in the drug culture to the pumping in of money from the Gulf countries as well as to the boom in the realty sector. Similarly, the police have also found an increasing number of city youths often moving along the Kumaly-Cumbum-Theni stretch in search of ganja and mushrooms, reportedly grown in the wilds of the Nilgiris.
The number of drug cases registered by the Kochi police has risen from 127 in 2013 to 508 in 2014 and further to 655 in 2015. The number of cases reported last year was 1,164 while the number of persons arrested in this connection stood at 1,343.
