"If the youth are the spine of the nation, drugs are the fracture that silently crack it from within."
Nagpur: The image of drug abuse is often mistaken as something distant—dark alleys, metropolitan slums, or international borders. But today, even
the peaceful gallis of Nagpur are witnessing what the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warns: “Drug markets are adapting faster than enforcement systems.”
The Nagpur Reality: An Emerging Drug Hub
In the bustling streets of Nagpur — Maharashtra’s Orange City, famed for its cultural vibrancy and educational hubs — an invisible war is raging, not of guns or swords, but of minds and futures, silently being consumed by the scourge of drugs.
Nagpur is no longer just the "Zero Mile" geographic heart of India. Besides being popular for its sweet santras and the Royal Tigers, increasingly, Nagpur is being identified as a strategic corridor for drug transit between Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. With highways that cut across regions and a growing population of migrant workers and college students, Nagpur is seeing a quiet infiltration of narcotics.
Between March 2024 and June 2025 alone, the Nagpur City Police, under Operation Thunder, seized Rs 8.6 crore worth drugs and arrested 730 individuals in 540 cases registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act across various police station jurisdictions in the city. The seizures included high-value contraband like MD (mephedrone), ganja, charas, opium, and doda, among others.
From ganja to designer drugs, the face of narcotics has changed. No longer are we dealing with just cannabis or heroin. Synthetic drugs like mephedrone (locally known as ‘meow-meow’), LSD blotters, and even pharma-grade opioids are being trafficked via courier services, darknet markets, and even Instagram DMs/emojis and Snapchat snaps.
"Technology is a double-edged sword. It connects people and contraband equally fast," warns Neil Woods, UK-based former undercover narcotics officer and author of “Good Cop, Bad War,” which is a must-read for everyone working in this area of fight against drugs, for its nuanced look at the global war against drugs from the perspective of a passionate police officer who spent 14 years undercover in the Drug Squad of the UK, but began to question the effectiveness of puntive anti-drug policies.
The Grey Zone: Punishment or Compassion?
"The line between criminality and medical casualty blurs when addiction walks in."
As a police officer, my oath binds me to the law. Possession, use, and trafficking of narcotics fall squarely under punitive sections of the NDPS Act. And yet, over years of raids and arrests, one uncomfortable truth keeps resurfacing: every addict/drug user may be a criminal in the eyes of law — but a lot of them are just captives of a disease of addiction.
I've seen young men, trembling from withdrawal, begging not for bail, but for detox. I’ve seen mothers collapse outside police stations — torn between shame and helplessness. The legal system may call them "accused," but in those moments, one can only see them as patients failed by their circumstances, their families, and sometimes, by the society and the system.
This is where the debate between punishing versus treating drug users becomes painfully real. Countries like Portugal, Switzerland, and Canada have shifted toward harm-reduction approaches — decriminalising personal use, expanding medical support, and offering second chances.
"Addiction doesn’t begin with crime. It begins with curiosity. And curiosity unchecked becomes an illness. The root of drug addiction is in the mind. Drug addicts need hospitals, not jails," says Dr. Atul Ambekar, Professor at AIIMS and a member of India’s National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, and a noted expert advocate of de-addiction and rehabilitation of drug addicts.
India still largely criminalises consumption. While deterrence is crucial to preventing abuse, an unpopular opinion as of today is that we must begin distinguishing between drug gangsters and peddlers who profit off misery versus users trapped in it. The NDPS Act does offer provisions under Section 64A for immunity upon undergoing treatment, but implementation is patchy and often lost in the backlog of cases.
[Section 64A of the NDPS Act, 1985 provides legal immunity to individuals charged with offences under Section 27, or involving small amounts of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances, if they voluntarily seek medical treatment for de-addiction at recognized government facilities.]
As someone who enforces the law, I do not advocate for blanket leniency. But as someone who has held sobbing parents and counselled helpless teenagers, I believe punishment without rehabilitation only deepens the damage. That’s why our de-addiction initiatives, counselling centers and diversion programs are not just innovative — they are necessary correctives to a justice system that must evolve. Justice without empathy becomes retribution. And a nation cannot heal by merely punishing its wounded.
"Protecting public health is a legitimate aim but imposing criminal sanctions for drug use [...] is neither necessary nor proportionate. On the other hand, punishment aggravates the behavioural, health, and social conditions of the affected people," as per official statement of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
From Policing to Preventing: A Multi-Pronged Fight
As an IPS officer with over half a decade in service, I have witnessed theft, homicide, cyber fraud — but no crime gnaws at the soul of society as insidiously as drug abuse.
Drugs don’t just ruin individuals. They corrode entire relationship structures of society—families, classrooms, friendships.
Enforcement alone isn’t enough. My years in khaki have taught me that you cannot just arrest the vulnerable out of a drug addiction crisis, and feign ignorance at the public health crisis that it really is.
That’s why in Nagpur, we’re shifting from mere seizures to multi-stakeholder interventions through Anti-Drug Awareness Week from June 20 to 26, 2025, under Operation Thunder led by our Hon’ble CP Dr Shri Ravinder Singal.
A syringe today, a shroud tomorrow. We cannot lose a generation to poison.
As per data shared by the Home department of Maharashtra, drugs worth Rs 4,249.90 crore were seized and 14,230 persons were arrested for consumption of banned narcotics in Maharashtra in 2024 alone.
The age group most impacted by drugs? 15-30 years — the very demographic meant to build our nation’s future. A recent UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) report placed India among the top transit nations for synthetic drugs, with Maharashtra’s ports and highways becoming unintended conduits.
When drugs seep into a city’s veins, crime follows like a shadow that swallows the dreams of its youth and the future of the society in its wake. Indeed, Nagpur’s local crime graph reflects this dangerous reality.
What haunts police officers like me and keeps us awake at night are not just these statistics. It is the faces behind the numbers - that of the 17-year-old boy from Wathoda who stole his mother’s jewellery for his next hit and the 19-year-old girl from a reputed college who overdosed in a hostel room, her dreams extinguished. It is these stories that fuel our passion to go beyond arrests, as stakeholders in nation building — to build systems that prevent, rehabilitate, and heal.
You can’t just imprison a drug crisis by jailing away a few street peddlers and isolating drug users from society. You have to outthink it, outwork it, and outlast it.
A multi-pronged strategy with multi-stakeholder coordination is imperative.
1️⃣ Enforcement: Hitting Supply Chains Hard
Nagpur City Police's special operation against drugs, codenamed Operation Thunder, launched in 2024 by Hon’ble CP Dr Ravinder Singal, has targeted peddler networks with surgical precision.
Our close coordination with other agencies and bordering state police has helped us intercept consignments at logistic hubs like Wardha Road and Butibori. Every peddler arrested is not just an offender caught — it is a young life potentially saved from initiation.
2️⃣ Engagement: Building a Wall of Awareness
Awareness is armour. If the mind is fortified, drugs can’t breach it.
Every month, our officers, myself included, step into classrooms of schools and colleges, not with the danda but with dialogue. We share stories, raise awareness and create safe spaces for children to ask questions without fear of judgment.
Furthermore, we have also introduced diversion activities to help channelise youth's energy to sports and other creative activities by organising sports tournaments forbyouth and local residents in identified drug-affected pockets across the city since the beginning of 2025, for we sternly believe that a youth rescued from drugs is a national asset regained.
Our fight is local, but there is inspiration to be drawn from across the globe. Countries like Iceland have slashed teen substance use through community sports and parental engagement. Australia’s National Drug Strategy focuses on harm minimisation rather than just punitive measures. Through webinars and idea exchange seminars with UNODC and other stakeholder agencies, kickstarted during Operation Thunder's Anti-Drug Awareness Week 2025 we continue to learn and adapt best practices for Nagpur’s context.
The Road Ahead: What We Need From Society
No police force, however determined, can win this alone.
✔ Parents and guardians must shed stigma and talk openly to children about drugs — early, honestly, and without moral panic.
✔ Educational institutions need robust anti-drug policies that blend discipline with compassion, rather than stigmatising drug users and isolating them from the mainstream.
✔ Tech companies must proactively police the digital alleys where narcotics are now peddled — the dark web, encrypted apps, gaming chats.
✔ Citizens can be our eyes and ears — report suspicious activity without fear (National Emergency Helpline Dial 112)
A Call to Action
"If we do not act today, we will be forced to grieve tomorrow."
As a woman in khaki, I carry a mother’s anguish for every lost child and a warrior’s resolve to reclaim them. On behalf of the entire Nagpur City Police, I appeal to all Nagpurkars — join hands with us. Let us make Nagpur not just a clean city but a clean-living city, where our youth breathe free and learn to say No to drugs and Yes to life.
Together, we can ensure that when history writes about this decade, it speaks not of a generation lost to narcotics, but of a people who rose in time to save it.
