Over 30 lakh students to campaign against drugs

Chennai: School and College students from all over the State would be taking part in a massive campaign against drug abuse on Thursday and take a pledge to abhor narcotics with the district administration organizing the events, State Health and Family Welfare Minister M Subramanian said on Wednesday.

Speaking to the media after the conference of district collectors and superintendents of police on prevention of drug trafficking and abuse in Chennai, he said over 30 lakh students were expected to take part in the campaign and also take a pledge to fight drugs.

Regretting that abuse of narcotic substances had gone up in the State during the past 10 years, he said despite the ban on narcotics, it was freely available all over the State during the previous regime as drugs made an easy entry into the State from other States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha and from the North East.

The conference was convened to stop drug trafficking and to eliminate the menace totally from the State, he said, listing out the various steps taken by the government to prevent drug abuse in various forms like ice cream laced with liquor and food items made of tobacco and nicotine products.

Ever since the DMK government came to power, the authorities had seized 152.96 tonnes of the banned gutka and pan masala products, which was valued at Rs 9.19 crore, and had collected a fine of Rs 2 crore from traders who sold those banned products, he said.