Shillong, Apr 8: The number of drug users in the state has come down even as the number of arrests has gone up, said chief minister Conrad K Sangma on Tuesday while making it clear that he is “not happy” with the outcome yet.
The government wants to make Meghalaya a complete drug-free state, he told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“The number of users has gone down. I am not happy with that kind of a result. There is much more to be done. We are looking at it as a war against drugs. So we will have to work much harder,” Sangma said.
Admitting that there has been a rise in frequency of supply, he said, however, more people could be arrested to police’s strong intelligence network.
Overall, there has been improvement in the scenario, there is a long way to go and there are lot of challenges, he said.
Meanwhile, the dedicated task force formed to deal with drug trafficking is working aggressively to target the supply chain, he said.
A meeting of Drug Reduction Elimination & Action Mission (DREAM) scheduled for Tuesday was postponed till after Easter.
On the effectiveness of DREAM in the fight against drugs, he said the supply network needs to be targeted and users need rehabilitation and counselling – these multiple interventions cane be done through DREAM.
Referring to Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s call for a concerted effort of all states to deal with the issue, Sangma said, “The call by the Assam CM is absolutely correct. We all need to work together as there is intel connected with different states that need to be coordinated and all that is happening and it will happen in a well-coordinated manner in the future.”
Terming DREAM as the first ever strong and coordinated effort at Central, state and regional levels, he said, “Coordination is taking place to fight against the menace of drugs.”
This has yielded results as the number of cases has gone up, he said.
