Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the State Government would initiate preventive incarceration for habitual drug offenders.
Replying to an adjournment motion moved by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition in the Assembly on Wednesday, Mr. Vijayan said the Prevention Of Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, Act, 1988, provided for imprisonment without trial for up to two years.
However, law enforcers rarely used the provision.
Hence, Mr. Vijayan directed police and excise enforcers to apply the law doggedly to deter drug smugglers, peddlers, and their enablers.
Mr. Vijayan said charge sheets in drug peddling cases should include the previous offences of the suspect to ensure successful prosecution.
The courts should order drug case suspects to execute a heavy cash bond backed by sureties to ensure they would not relapse into the narcotic trade.
The CM also urged the police to collect intelligence on the drug trade.
He said synthetic drugs posed a particularly grave threat to society. They, especially LSD “stamps” and MDMA pills, were easily concealable, transportable and vulnerable to misdeclaration at air, sea and land border check-posts.
Mr. Vijayan also announced the compilation of a police data bank on narcotic criminals.
He declared a special drive in the run-up to Onam to crack down on narcotic peddling and abuse. The CM said anti-narcotic law enforcement and social awareness campaigns would march in lockstep.
Mr. Vijayan said the police and excise departments had so far impounded 1,340 kg ganja, 6.7 kg MDMA and 23.4 kg hashish oil in 2022 alone.
The seizures were merely the iceberg’s tip. They accounted only for a small fraction of drugs smuggled into Kerala and peddled on the street.
Mr. Vijayan said an increasing number of impressionable youth were slipping into drug crime, given the sizeable profits involved.
In 2022, the police arrested 17,834 persons on drug charges, many youths between 18 and 21 years of age.
Congress legislator P.C. Vishnunath moved the adjournment motion. Leader of Opposition, V.D. Satheesan, welcomed Mr. Vijayan’s statement.
