DRUG FREE INDIA
Why in News?:The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is making an aggressive push to eradicate drugs in the country. In the past three years, over 89,000 football fields of opium and cannabis cultivation have been destroyed across several states in the country.
The government aims to make India “drug-free” by 2047.
Extent of Drug Abuse in India:
India is facing a serious challenge of drug abuse and trafficking, which affects the health, well-being, and security of millions of people, especially the youth.
According to World Drug Report 2022, India has the 4th largest quantity of opium seized in 2020 at 5.2 tons, and the 3rd highest amount of morphine was also seized in the same year at 0.7 tons.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), India accounted for 7% of the global opium seizures and 2% of the global heroin seizures in 2019.
India is also situated between two major drug-producing regions, the Golden Crescent (Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan) and the Golden Triangle (Thailand-Laos-Myanmar), which makes it vulnerable to illicit drug trafficking.
