Ministry redrafts national policy for drug demand reduction

The national policy for drug demand reduction, which seeks to address the problem of drug and substance abuse in the country was redrafted by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and will be moved to the Union Cabinet for approval shortly.
According to sources in the Ministry, the national policy for drug demand reduction was redrafted following directions from the Prime Minister's Office which found the original draft to the very lengthy.
"We had sent the draft policy to the Prime Minister's office for approval. They have found the original draft to be very lengthy and asked us to concise it. We have redrafted the policy now," said a source.

The redrafted policy mainly focuses on the rehabilitation aspect of the victims apart from the covering two broad areas -- the illicit drugs including cannabis, heroin and opium and the other, pharmaceutical preparations like tranquilisers and inhalants.
The policy emphasises on strengthening coordination among various regulatory agencies concerned to check the diversion of substances from lawful channels to illicit networks, including internet pharmacies.
The objective of the policy is to undertake drug demand reduction efforts to address all forms of drug use, including misuse and dependence, to create awareness about the ill-effects of drugs abuse on the individual, family, workplace and the society at large.

It also aims to provide for a whole range of community based services for the identification, motivation, counselling, de-addiction, after care and rehabilitation for Whole Person Recovery (WPR) of addicts and facilitate research, training, documentation and collection of relevant information to strengthen the above mentioned objectives.

The objective is also to ensure that stigmatization of and discrimination against, groups and individuals dependent on drugs is actively discouraged in order to integrate them back into the society.
"Drug and substance abuse is a serious problem and addiction to drugs not only affects the individual's health but also disrupts their families and the whole society.

"Regular consumption of various psychoactive substances leads to drug dependence of the individual. Drug abuse needs to be viewed as a psychosocial-medical problem, which requires a combination of medical treatment and psychosocial intervention. Of late the menace of drug abuse in the younger generation has been rising all over the world and India is no exception to it," said a senior Ministry official.
According to government data, it is estimated that there were approximately 8.7 million cannabis users and 2 million opiate users in India in 2001.