A 2019 Union social justice ministry report says phenomenal 1.3 crore people use cannabis in its illegal forms (ganja and charas) – apart from 2.2 crore users for bhang, which is legal.
Indians had been consuming cannabis products, for several centuries, mentioned even in early texts, for medical and recreational use, before in 1985/86, Indian Govt. , gave in under western pressure to form tight narcotic laws that created the sale, production, and transportation of cannabis illegal in the country.
***Putting such a huge population of users in constant fear of criminalization (the prescribed penalty is rigorous imprisonment for up to twenty years and fine of two lakhs ) under the stringent NDPS Act is not just inhuman, it is also paradoxical to the Indian culture that accepted cannabis use.***
If The NCB strictly started to impose this law, owing to the massive number of people who'd get arrested the college hostels would become empty.
But nothing to fear since right now its presently focused upon Rhea Chakraborty who allegedly had around 60 grams of ganja with her.
A rhetorical question here Why Only The enchantresses who beguile gullible heroes into the web of illusion of drugs are being called in for questioning and not actors why?
The answer - because they are soft targets and if anyways you want to see heroes using drugs, see the movie Sanju it has full measures of drugs, AK47, and everything else which is a blockbuster.
The stigma associated with drug use leads to social exclusion and isolation, thus impeding access to healthcare and harm reduction services. A prohibitionist environment drives people towards unsafe practices and the black market where the quality of substances remains unchecked, leading to adulteration as stated in a study as mentioned in a TOI article notes several aspects of the ban including driving sales underground, leading to dangerous adulteration and boosting more potent psychoactive drugs.
More than 20 states in the US have decriminalized cannabis consumption, while 11 have legalized personal consumption of cannabis. Other countries across the world are following a similar trend and are moving away from the criminalization of cannabis use.
Back in the 1990s, Portugal faced a heroin crisis. Most people knew someone affected by the lethal drug. Just two decades later, the country has one of the lowest drug-related death rates in the world. This dramatic turnaround isn't credited to a hard-line approach, but instead by decriminalizing all drugs, while bans continue to stick in slow-to-react India.
Sikkim provides a promising indigenous de-criminalization model. The Sikkim Anti-Drugs Act, 2006 (“SADA”) does not utilize deterrence to curb drug use and relies on a public health approach to protect the best interests of a drug user.
The impact of criminalization of cannabis use is inordinately felt by the judicial system, already crumbling under high pendency of more than 2.4 crore criminal cases and an overburdened and understaffed police force, with an overall vacancy of 5,28,165 police personnel and a police per lakh population ratio of 158.22. Also In two years after legalization in January 2018, California has netted $1 billion in revenue receipts from marijuana.
It's my opinion that India should de-criminalize cannabis use completely and adopt a public health approach to address drug addiction and use.
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