Drug seizures in India in 2020 highest in five years, finds NCB report

New Delhi: The seizure of various drugs, including opium and heroin, in India in 2020, the first year of COVID, was the highest since 2016, a report by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has said.

Data compiled by the federal anti-narcotics agency states that the seizure of opium went up from 4,488 kg in 2019 to 5,212 kg in 2020.

Similarly, the seizure of heroin (extracted from opium) shot up from 3,231 kg in 2019 to 3,838 kg in 2020, ganja (cannabis) from 3,42,045 kg to 5,81,644 kg, ephedrine (a stimulant drug) from 686 kg to 841 kg, and hashish (drug extracted from cannabis) from 3,572 kg to 6,643 kg, the recently published NCB report for the year 2020 said.

The figures for 2020 were the highest for a five-year period beginning 2016, the report showed.

“While there has been a variation of trend in the number of reported opium seizures in comparison to previous years up to 2019, the quantity of opium seized has increased from 4,488 kg to 5,212 kg in 2020,” the report said.

However, the seizure of cocaine, a party drug, fell from 66 kg in 2019 to 19 kg the next year, primarily due to closure of international flights in India because of the pandemic.

The air route from Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia and Afghanistan is the major mode for trafficking of the recreational drug into India.

The coronavirus pandemic first erupted from the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 and India went into complete lockdown after 24 March, 2020 to curb the spread of the infection.

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The agency, while analysing the narcotics trends for 2020, stated that “major trafficking” of heroin in India took place through the India-Pakistan border along Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab.

An increase in maritime trafficking of southwest Asian heroin was being witnessed in 2020, the report said.

“The seizure figures for major categories of narcotics show that while the globe may have come to a standstill in 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak, drug traffickers were making the most of the available time to push their contraband. Most of these seizures were made during active operations where suspects and vehicles were intercepted by the authorities,” a senior officer told PTI.

He, however, added that the seizure of some other drugs like methaqualone and acetic anhydride went down in 2020 in comparison with the previous year.

“The traffickers could not have found profit margins in the movement of these categories of drugs as there were massive COVID-19-induced restrictions for road movement during 2020, and evading the radar of the enforcement and security agencies was tough,” the officer said.

The agency, in the report, also expressed concerns over the “increasing abuse” of prescription drugs as India has one of the biggest pharmaceutical industrial bases and their products were getting “diverted”.

“The problem seems to be serious in the north-east and the north-west region of the country. The pharmaceutical products that are abused include buprenorphine, codeine-based cough syrups, alprazolam, diazepam and other sedatives.

“The easy availability of such preparations is the major factor that encourages their misuse. There is also a perception that these drugs are less harmful than hard drugs like heroin, cocaine etc.

“However, this is a misconception since these can be addictive and also have a debilitating effect on health,” the report said.

It said that the “emergence of drug trafficking through internet-based pharmacies, especially through illegal websites established in the USA, Europe etc., offering unregulated trade in a range of prescription medicines over the internet has taken firm root in India as a supplier”.

“These online pharmacies transmit orders from paying customers to agents in India, who then procure the medicines from either legitimate or illegitimate sources before dispatching them to the customers by mail and courier. The sheer volume of international post makes it impossible to screen every parcel, and hence, a vast majority of illegal consignments passes by undetected,” the report said.

Internet pharmacies, it added, are usually highly vulnerable and keep the identity of organisers tightly veiled.

“In India, nevertheless, the NCB either on its own or in coordination with outside agencies has been making at least one bust every year, over the years,” the report said.

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