Hyderabad: News reports pertaining to crime in Andhra Pradesh have frequently mentioned marijuana and other drugs over the last few years. Experts say these substances have managed to penetrate several college and university campuses, and offices with many students and working professionals also roped into the trade.
Marijuana has become such a menace that a white paper on the situation of law and order in the state produced by the Chandrababu Naidu-led government had specific mentions of “ganja”.
Presenting the document in the assembly in July, Chief Minister Naidu had said that in the last five years under the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) regime, “Andhra Pradesh gained notoriety for extensive production and widespread consumption of ganja”.
Soon after, the Andhra Pradesh government had announced the formation of an Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) to fight the problem of production, supply, distribution and consumption of marijuana, drugs and other such substances. The inception of the force is now underway.
Also Read: Actors, politicians to RWAs, everyone fears HYDRAA in Telangana. Why govt agency’s talk of the town
Extent of the menace
According to the police, weed is grown on a large scale along Andhra-Odisha border (AOB) in districts like Malkangiri, Koraput, Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram, where local residents, mainly tribal people, are lured by smugglers into cultivating hemp for hefty returns.
“Significant quantities of ganja are trafficked from this region to other states and other countries, like Nepal and Sri Lanka,” the white paper had said. In several incidents of seizure of such substances, Telangana Police too have found the origin to be the Andhra-Odisha Border/Visakhapatnam.
Telangana’s Cyberabad Police Tuesday seized 254 kg of dry ganja near Hyderabad from smugglers attempting to transport it from Araku near Visakhapatnam for supply to Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai via Hyderabad. Five men from Uttar Pradesh were arrested.
The variety grown at AOB, called “Sheelavathi”, according to government officials and reports, has become the most popular in the region due to lower price, availability and flavour, displacing “Malana Cream”, grown in Himachal Pradesh.
The chief minister said that while 4,28,457 kg of weed was seized during his previous tenure in 2014-19, the number grew 27 percent during former chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy’s term to 5,47,738 kg, indicating the increased magnitude of cultivation-distribution.
Referring to connections established between massive drug seizures in Gujarat and supply chains originating in Vijayawada, Naidu said, “Ganja and drugs have penetrated the society deeply, causing serious health hazards, and ultimately leading to addiction.”
Ganja and drugs also featured in a discussion on law and order in the first district collectors conference held by the Naidu government last month in Amaravati, since coming into power in June.
According to the police, the number of ganja-related cases flared up by 122 percent from 2,948 (2014-19) to 6,560 (2019-23).
The menace linked to ganja, in addition to spurious liquor, has become totally unmanageable, Naidu had said. To highlight the gravity of the problem, he also cited incidents, like the rape of a woman by addicts near the Tadepalli residence of former CM Jagan Reddy, and attack on a police constable in Visakhapatnam by a person under the influence of ganja.
The Government General Hospital at Guntur, government officials said, recorded a 1,300 percent jump in cases of alcohol & drug addiction, up from 343 in 2020 to 4,913 in 2023. According to National Crime Records Bureau data, suicides related to alcohol/drug addiction doubled in 2022 compared to 2018.
“Drugs and ganja have spread beyond control in Andhra Pradesh. The otherwise serene Visakhapatnam has earned the ill repute of becoming the ‘ganja capital of India’, or even the world, according to some. It is easily available like a toffee at a roadside kiosk, and a large number of young people are getting addicted, which is quite alarming,” said Dr N.N. Raju, former superintendent of Government Hospital for Mental Care in Visakhapatnam, and former president of Indian Psychiatric Society.
Also Read: How Chandrababu is cracking whip on central services ‘babus’ brought to AP on deputation by Jagan
Task force in the works
For the job of setting up the task force, the chief minister has chosen Indian Police Service officer Ake Ravi Krishna, who was repatriated from central deputation and posted as Inspector General of Police (Organisation).
The ANTF is in the making, and according to one senior police officer, the idea is to build a dedicated force of over 720 personnel from law and order, Special Police, Armed Reserve and other divisions, with narcotic cells in all 26 districts and an anti-narcotics police station.
The anti-narcotics police station in the state capital of Amaravati, headed by a deputy superintendent of police, will register and pursue all the cases. A toll-free number for information collection, and fast track courts in Visakhapatnam, Rajahmundry, Vijayawada, Guntur and Tirupati for speedy trial and conviction, have also been proposed.
“The plan involves extensive use of technology—satellite data to drones—in order to locate the fields, transportation routes. Dynamic checking will be adopted, instead of static posts that the smugglers would become aware of in no time. Not just arrests, backward and forward linkages will be established, i.e., to bring the real culprits and kingpins to the book,” a senior officer told ThePrint on the condition of anonymity.
“Only then will we succeed in breaking the chain. We want to build watertight cases. At present, the conviction rates under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, or NDPS Act, are low.”
‘Coordinated effort needed’
The officer said that Andhra Pradesh alone cannot put an end to the menace and that a coordinated inter-state effort is needed.
“Weed is cultivated on a big scale on the Odisha side too, and a large supply from AOB goes to Hyderabad and further for consumption in Telangana and other states. So, we need a united effort, sharing intelligence and conducting joint operations, much like what we did to curb the Maoist menace in the previous decades,” the officer said.
Telangana had formed its anti-narcotics bureau in June last year.
The Andhra Pradesh Police’s anti-narcotics action plan includes district-wide mapping of Ganja/drug hotspots, formation of special anti-drug squads, district-level narcotics task force teams, intensive raids and search operations, vigil on social media, dark web transactions, and training on latest drug detection techniques.
In addition, the government plans to take up extensive community-based awareness campaigns, especially in schools and colleges to explain the devastating effects of drugs. Drug rehabilitation programmes, in collaboration with the health department, are also being planned in the districts.
Back in February 2022, the state police’s Special Enforcement Bureau (SEB) had set fire to over 200 tonnes of cannabis at Koduru village near Visakhapatnam, which was estimated to be worth about Rs 500 crore.
Though the Jagan Reddy government and the police had initiated Operation Parivartana at the time, to pull tribal people away from ganja cultivation, and destroyed vast fields and huge quantities of seized weed, the farming of the substances has reportedly been expanding every year.
“International cartels are supplying the seeds and other types of support, which gullible tribals are getting attracted to as a Rs 10,000 input comes with a return of Rs 1 lakh. Over half of those imprisoned in the Vizag jail are such tribals. Ganja has become an election issue, too,” said D. Venkanna, vice president of Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Karmika Sangham.
“The government should involve civil society in the eradication, while encouraging tribals to take to cultivation of coffee, pepper, and other crops,” Venkanna added.
Naidu has now discontinued the SEB, after observing that the specialised wing largely failed in its task. Jagan had formed SEB in 2020 to tackle the issue of illicit liquor and ganja. With its ANTF now, the government intends to deal with the menace head on.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)