Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s direction to the officials to deal with the drug menace with an iron hand is not a routine order but it emanates from his firm opinion that the future of Telangana’s youth was being destroyed with the unprecedented availability of drugs, including ganja.
This opinion was formed when Mr. Revanth Reddy took out a padayatra in 2021 much before he became the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president. During his padayatra in South Telangana, Mr. Reddy personally saw how people as young as 12 to 13 years were addicted to ganja with their parents sounding helpless on the easy availability of the weed.
“I could see an entire generation of Telangana losing their future due to this addiction and the government must take serious measures to contain this,” he told a group of journalists covering his padayatra. “Mothers couldn’t see their kids smoking marijuana and their experience is quite painful to listen to,” he said.
So, not many were surprised when the Chief Minister held a review meeting on drugs within five days of assuming office reflecting his intentions to drive away the menace or keep the youngsters away from it. The posting of senior officer Sandeep Shandilya as Director of Telangana State Anti Narcotics Bureau (TS-NAB) is also to send a strong message to the drug peddlers and users that the government was serious on tackling the menace.
A follow-up meeting of the Excise department after the Chief Minister’s review also focussed on controlling the transport and availability of the weed. A senior official told The Hindu that they had explained the reasons for the easy supply and measures to control them.
They said the Andhra Orissa Border (AoB) is the hub of the ganja plantation and Telangana is the transit hub for it before it is moved to Maharashtra and Karnataka States. Strengthening the check posts on the Andhra Pradesh Telangana border and asking the police stations enroute to focus specially on ganja transportation would be fruitful.
Officials said the ganja transporters are turning into peddlers and later the consumers too are turning into peddlers. The lockdown period helped the spread of ganja to the villages as explained to the Chief Minister. Students of professional courses and IT sector workers addicted to weed moved to their native villages during the lockdown and it was introduced to the youngsters there. Easy availability and relatively cheap weed is now spread all over Telangana.
At the same time, the urban youth are addicted to synthetic drugs that come from Bengaluru and Goa. The spread of the Cyberabad area with hundreds of pubs springing up has helped the hangout places become havens for them. While the drug menace increased along with the area rapidly spreading, the availability of police force or police stations has remained stagnant in Cyberabad and Hyderabad city where the drug abuse is growing rapidly.
“Increasing the personnel and police stations with a focussed approach will have a huge impact on drug availability and spread,” the officials are reported to have revealed in the meeting.
