The increasing number of cannabis (ganja) seizures and Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act cases in the city, along with disclosures by peddlers that the number of school and college students among their clientele was soaring, has left the City Narcotics Cell a bit worried.
While the number of NDPS Act cases registered by the Thiruvananthapuram City police have gone up from 70 in 2014 to 268 till September this year, revelations that several students were now becoming drug carriers to meet their marijuana requirements have added to the fears of the City police.
Fake prescriptions
One trend, which the Narcotics Cell officers say is catching up fast among school and college students, is to visit hospitals, take an OP ticket, and then without seeing the doctor, use the ticket to make fake prescriptions and purchase prescription drugs, among which a tablet, Nitrosun-10, which contains nitrazepam, was quite popular.
City-based peddlers too were using the same trick to purchase the tablet, which came at around Rs.20 a tablet, and selling them to students and other needy clients at rates ranging from Rs.150-Rs.200 a tablet. Two peddlers arrested from the Tsunami Park at Shanghumugham late last month were nabbed along with 1.5 kg of ganja and 10 strips of tablets procured in similar fashion, the officers said.
While the ganja seized in the city has mostly come via well-known routes, from places including Usilampatti, Cumbum and Theni, there is another trend that too is keeping the Narcotics sleuths on tenterhooks.
LSD stamps
The arrest of a software engineer, a resident of the city working in Bengaluru, along with ganja and Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), a psychedelic drug in stamp format, and cannabis in August, has indicated that LSD stamps too were increasingly available in the city, mostly through students and others working in neighbouring States.
“We have information on LSD stamps being brought to the city, for supply to friends and secret networks, besides to be used in parties. We also have information on several students working as carriers of such drugs and ganja as well. Many of them are ferrying these to ensure their supply of drugs,” an officer said.
Efforts are also on to get Drugs Control authorities act tough on medical shops that engaged in sale of prescription drugs to students and peddlers, some of which, the police believe, are not just innocent over-the-counter transactions.
