{"id":243812,"date":"2021-02-12T17:15:55","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T11:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=243812"},"modified":"2021-02-19T10:40:53","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T05:10:53","slug":"ker-hc-hc-hears-suo-moto-case-of-upsurging-drug-abuse-directs-state-to-establish-campus-police-units-to-ensure-regular-checking-in-educational-institutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2021\/02\/12\/ker-hc-hc-hears-suo-moto-case-of-upsurging-drug-abuse-directs-state-to-establish-campus-police-units-to-ensure-regular-checking-in-educational-institutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Ker HC | HC hears suo moto case of\u00a0 upsurging drug abuse; directs State to establish Campus Police Units to ensure regular checking in educational institutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kerala High Court: <\/strong>Instant writ petition was registered suo motu<\/em>, taking note of the menace of drug consumption and trade in State. The Bench of S. Manikumar, CJ., and A.M. Shaffique, J., observed the difficulties faced by Police officials while using \u201cAbon Kits\u201d to spot cases drug consumption. The Bench suggested,<\/p>\n

\u201cEfforts have to be taken to identify whether any ‘user-friendly’ device, at the same time ‘less expensive’, is available, and if so, to cause it to be procured and make the same available to the Police, Excise, and such other departments for extensive use.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Ramachandran, former District Police Chief, addressed a letter to Judges of High Court highlighting various aspects of drug abuse in Kerala. The letter had thrown light on increasing rate of crimes committed by youths under the influence of drugs and its alarming growth in children\/students of both genders. Pursuant to the letter and observing that issues concerning rampant drug abuse were recently reported in the editorials of major newspapers, the Court had registered suo moto<\/em> petition in the matter.<\/p>\n

The Bench observed reports of various organizations on this matter. International journal of community medicine and public health had reported that 31.8% of Kerala youth abuse any one of the substances-alcohol, smoking, pan chewing, narcotics\u2014 irrespective of time and frequency in lifetime. Report of the State Special Branch,\u00a0 suggested that around 400 institutions in the State were affected by drug abuse and out of the education institutions, 74.12% are schools, \u00a020.89% are colleges and professional institutions, and 4.97% are other institutions viz., ITI, Polytechnics etc. The report of NCRB<\/strong> had noted that in 2017 Kerala’s incidence rate for NDPS cases (cases per lakh people) was 16.6 percent, second only to Punjab’s 20.2 per cent.<\/p>\n

The report also revealed that a range of drugs from Ganja, Hashish to Synthetic Drugs were used by the student community. The report further revealed that in most of the cases detected in the college campuses, the seizure was below 1 kg of ganja, which was bailable, and this encourages a person to engage in drug abuse.<\/p>\n

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\u201cApart from the narcotic and synthetic drugs usage being rampant among the student community, inhaling of Noxious chemicals like whitener, ink, fevicol, varnish solution used for repairing tyre puncture, were being used by the students for getting intoxication.<\/em>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Noticing that the above substances did not come under the purview of NDPS Act, no legal action could be initiated; the Bench suggested three main strategies for drug prevention:<\/p>\n