[Chd,Pb]Capt Kicks Drug Menace Into Centre’s Court
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, Capt Amarinder Singh urged him to advise ministries of Home, Social Justice and Empowerment, and Health and Family Welfare to address the issue.
The chief minister sought Modi’s personal intervention for the formulation of a national policy focusing on three components — enforcement, de-addiction and prevention — to tackle the menace of drug abuse in the country.Singh said a national policy would enable all states to follow a similar, if not the same, approach on drug abuse, which, he said, “has substantially hampered the health of the people, particularly the youth”.
The chief minister expressed his state’s willingness to associate with the officers concerned of the Centre not only to evolve the policy but also to put in place an effective mechanism for its implementation.
In his letter to Modi, Singh also touched upon several steps which the Congress government in Punjab has taken during the past two years to check the drug menace and to expand its outreach at the grassroots to make towns and villages “drug-free”.
He also sought financial support from the Centre to increase the number of Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment (OOAT) clinics in Punjab, which he said, are currently being run on “meagre state resources”.