Nationwide narcotics survey misses February deadline

A nationwide survey on use of narcotics has missed its February deadline, and the designated agency has not even defined the parameters on which the samples were to be collected.
The Social Justice and Empowerment (SJ&E) Ministry had in November last year assigned the task to a government organisation, which was to begin the survey as a pilot project in Manipur, Maharashtra and Punjab.
"Following its (pilot project) completion, the survey agency had to conduct a nationwide programme and submit its final report in February," officials from the SJ&E Ministry told PTI.
However, out of the three states in the pilot project stage, only Punjab managed to provided the information sought by the Ministry and the survey agency, he said.

"The delay has been due to several reasons. While the states are not cooperating as expected, the survey agency too has not been able to begin the initial process of preparing necessary parameters for the project," they said, adding that the Ministry has provided sufficient money for the survey.
Due to lack of authentic data, de-addiction programmes in these states have failed to meet their targets, he said.

On the estimated number of drug users in the country, he said, "Unfortunately, there is no accurate data available on this. Whatever we have are guessworks from several different agencies and NGOs."

The Ministry has repeatedly written to some of the states which have shown an alarming rise in drug consumption among youths, they said. It had last year written to Punjab and Manipur to treat the problem of drug abuse on top priority.
The social justice ministry had launched a programme in 10 districts of Punjab in 2011 which have high prevalence of drug users.
"There is a need to restart the de-addiction program in Punjab and other states. So far we have covered 10 districts there but the new programme, which is being planned, will cover the entire state," they said.