The sudden spurt in the flow of ganja to the district may be attributed to the peak harvesting season in States where it is illegally cultivated, excise officials have said.
According to data available with the Excise Department, nearly 40 kg of ganja was seized in the district in the past couple of months alone. Officials were candid enough to admit that at least double that volume might have been transacted during the period evading the prying eyes of enforcement agencies.
“Ganja is brought here mainly from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh, and the harvesting season in these States, separated by small periods, end by mid-June. It is not directly smuggled in here but is initially collected by wholesalers in Tamil Nadu from whom peddlars buy it,” T.A. Ashok Kumar, Divisional Excise Commissioner, told The Hindu .
He said very few professional carriers were engaged in ganja trade unlike in the case of synthetic drugs. Most of them might have bought small volumes from Tamil Nadu initially and would have made a profit and thus got hooked. They gradually buy greater volumes and sell them through users among their contacts and thus build a network of clientèle over time. While those clients prove lucrative as long as the business runs smoothly they also end up as conduits who betray the supplier eventually.
“Often we pick up one of these users who leads us to the supplier. We then lay a trap for them by masquerading as potential clients and place an order with them. Some of them simply walk into it by the lure of money after asking us to transfer the money to specific bank accounts,” said Mr. Kumar.
While excise officials are aware that the contraband mostly flows from places like Cumbum, Theni, Pollachi, and Gudalur in Tamil Nadu, they have hardly been able to do anything substantial to stem the flow. “A sort of tribal loyalty prevails in these dens, and it is near impossible to penetrate them,” Mr. Kumar said.
The Excise Department also feels that the soaring demand for ganja and synthetic drugs coincided with the fall in alcohol consumption as a preferred intoxicant. According to officials, alcohol hardly enjoys 5% to 10% new users and is dependent on ‘regulars’ as reflected in the substantial drop in sale at bars, which had in the past done booming business. Bars, which once did business worth ₹3.50 lakh a day, now rarely touches the ₹2-lakh mark, it is pointed out.
