Heady reform

Implementing UN resolution on cannabis is sensible

One of the unnoticed contradictions embedded in the recent zeal of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in arresting sundry film stars and their relatives for possessing cannabis is that India voted with the majority in the UN to remove cannabis and cannabis resin from the list of most dangerous substances. This decision was taken at the International Conventions on Narcotic Drugs in December last year, ending a 59-year international regime under which cannabis was classified as a hard drug. Yet possession of cannabis continues to be a crime in India according to a 1985 law, the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, under which Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s son is in custody. The Indian law proscribes sale, production, and possession of ganja, the flowering and fruiting tops of the cannabis plant, and charas, the resin (also known as hashish), the substance Aryan Khan may or may not have been carrying on his person. If proven, Khan Jr could serve a term of rigorous imprisonment of up to one year plus a fine of up to Rs 20,000.

Interestingly, the NDPS Act excludes the seeds and leaves of the cannabis plant, though these are used in the making of bhang, a common and fairly potent intoxicant imbibed during festivals in north India and sold in licensed shops in states such as Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Cannabis seeds are also used in several eastern Indian cuisines. These exemptions are one indicator of the role all parts of the cannabis plant have played in Indian society since ancient times. The irony is that though the law has reduced the age-old recreational imbibing of ganja and charas in India to a moral issue, cannabis consumption in all its forms continues unabated. Indeed, until 1985, it was sold in licensed government vends. But over much of India, it is still openly consumed in most temple towns and religious akhadas and among village menfolk after a day’s hard labour. Cannabis consumption has long been a time-honoured coming-of-age rite for countless university students as well. More to the point, this widespread de facto consumption of cannabis in society has not turned India into a nation of addicts.

Given this, in line with the UN resolution, it makes sense for the government to decriminalise people in possession of small quantities of drugs for consumption. The social justice ministry has recommended as much to the department of revenue, which had sought suggestions from several government departments for amending the law. The ministry added that such “users” or “substance dependents” should be treated as “victims” and not “addicts” and sent compulsorily to rehab and treatment centres instead of to prison. This is a more compassionate approach, to be sure, but legalising cannabis for recreational use can also bring heady benefits to tax collection. Both Colorado and Washington, among the 15 US states to legalise the drug in recent years, have seen buoyant tax collection from cannabis sales. As importantly, perhaps, it would free the NCB from exerting itself to define such legally ambiguous terms as “conscious possession”, of which Khan Jr stands accused, and focus its attentions on the real peril: The flourishing cross-border trade in heroin that is having such deleterious consequences for the youth in Punjab.