Rapid Proliferation Of Drug Business In Manipur

Mohammad Imtiyaj Khan *

4680 strips of Respifed tablets and other drugs being caught at Pallel in last week of April 2013 :: Pix - Gyanand Naorem

It is highly condemnable that in past 5 years or so there has been rapid proliferation of illegal drugs business in Manipur. On daily basis, illegal drugs worth crores of rupees are seized by law enforcers whose credibility/accountability is highly questionable.

The news of seizure is discussed everywhere: blogs, newspaper columns, editorials, assembly. They mostly talk about necessity of new legal framework which is stronger than existing ones to book these illegal businesses. Most of these discussions are one sided because they talk about treating the symptom but not the cause. Let us try to have a look at the causes.

The ever-expanding drug business could be attributed to
1) huge instant profit,
2) nexus between the drug peddlers and law enforcing agencies such as police, military, other prominent people,
3) proximity to Myanmar and porous international border,
4) decrease in legally acceptable business options leading to increased unemployment, and
5) sky-rocketing bribery in state government recruitments.

From the last four factors contributing to the thriving drug business, it is clearly understood that state and union government has important role to play to curb drug business.

In my opinion, drug business in Manipur could be categorised into two, i.e.,
1) business of over-the-counter drugs to be sold illegally/under the counter for consumption (by wayward youths) in Manipur, and
2) illegal stocking, unpacking, powdering of over-the-counter drugs (predominantly, tablets) and peddling them exclusively to international clients based in Myanmar.

In past some years, the size of the first category of drug business has been overtaken by the second category of drug business. Interesting, most of the drugs confiscated by law enforcers in recent months (to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees) fall in the second category of business.

Now, the question is if the second category of business is peddling of drugs to only foreigners then what is so illegal about it? It is well established, by now, that the drugs imported by Myanmar are used for extraction of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and these APIs are reformulated into altogether a new drug.

So far, there is no clear understanding of those new drugs if
1) they are approved as clinically effective safe/acceptable product, and
2) they are imported back into India for sale/consumption.
Hence, the government should come up with technical and authoritative information on these doubtful issues.

Regarding the second category of drug business, no one actually cares to ask a question: what is the fate of the seized drugs? These drugs are approved by drug controller general of India for sale in India. So much of national resource had been put in to manufacture these drugs which are also national resources.

Now it should be asked, how Home Ministry, Govt. of Manipur is disposing these seized drugs? Is there any effective system in place to utilise these drugs in legal way? Once seized, these drugs become public property, hence these details should be known to public. These details are important because of the involvement of law enforcers such as police, military and kin of local politicians in drug peddling business in past few months.

Not only this, by now it has become open secret that members of law enforcing agencies (or security force) use illegal drugs and because of this they frequently conduct irresponsibly during their duty hours, specially at security check points. In this regard, it is worth asking if the seized drugs are accessible to these drug using members of the security force.

Since both categories of drug business are illegal, it is imperative to uproot them from our society. The responsibility for this lies with the police and other law enforcing bodies. But, in the present scenario the accountability of law enforcing bodies is terribly low.

Hence, more than a new law, the first step required is setting up of a tamper-proof mechanism to enhance accountability of law enforcing bodies so that the drug business could be combated successfully in responsible ways. The second step should be to seal the international border falling in the territory of Manipur.

Thirdly, government should come up with self-help schemes for educated unemployed youths of this state. Last but not the least, state government recruitments should be strictly monitored through civilian participation to effectively stop bribery.