Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Friday said the government was tackling the menace of drug abuse strictly and a massive campaign would soon be launched to curb this social vice.

After a meeting on drug abuse campaign, Thakur said drug abuse had emerged as a global problem and our nation and state were no exception.

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“Joint and earnest efforts are required for curbing this social vice,” he added.

He said recently, a meeting was held at Chandigarh where CMs of four neighbouring states and officers from three other states participated to chalk out a joint strategy to curb this social evil.

It was decided in the meeting that joint inspections and regular checkups would be conducted by the police teams of Himachal, Punjab, Haryana and Uttarakhand in the border areas.

Thakur said the police should conduct frequent raids on suspected places so as to nab drug peddlers as it was vital to break the nexus between the drug paddlers, drug carriers and the drug addicts.

The parents should also keep an eye on their children so that any abnormal behavioural change could be noticed at the early stage.

A special awareness campaign would be launched in the educational institutions, particularly degree colleges to sensitise the students about ill effects of the drugs, he added. Thakur said departments as Home, Health, Education, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Information and Public Relations and Social Justice would be involved in a big way to check this vice.

All these departments should nominate nodal officers for effective coordination with the other departments.

Further, efforts should be made to frame stringent laws against drug peddling and drug abuse. “This would prove a major deterrent for the drug paddling,” he said, adding laws should be framed for confiscating the properties of drug paddlers which would prove a major deterrent.

He, however, expressed dissatisfaction on low conviction rate as compared to the neighbouring states and said Police personnel must be trained so that serious case and charges could be framed against the drug paddlers.

Health officers and health safety regulatory officers should seek information about manufacturing of schedule H-1 drugs in the state and where they do supply these drugs and in which quantity especially to the neighbouring states like Punjab and Haryana.

He directed the drug inspectors to conduct regular inspections to check supply and sale of banned drugs in the state. He also laid emphasis on rehabilitation of drug addicts and said doctors, counsellors and other paramedical staff must trained to professionally manning deaddiction and rehabilitation centres.