Representatives of BRICS member nations will evaluate the drug abuse situation in their respective countries and chalk out strategies at a meeting to be inaugurated by Home Minister Rajnath Singh here tomorrow.
The BRICS heads of drug control agencies working group meeting will evaluate the drug abuse situation in the member countries and analyse the legislations of BRICS member states as well as devise modalities to share the best practices of enforcement and demand reduction.
The meeting comes two-days after the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) told the Home Minister that drug addicts in Punjab are gradually getting attracted to medicine-based concoctions following stepped-up clamp down on peddling of traditional narcotics.
At a review meeting yesterday, the NCB chief Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar apprised Singh about the changing drug abuse pattern in Punjab and stressed that the "increase in street price of opiates due to less availability as a result of increased enforcement activities by drug law agencies are making addicts shift to pharmaceutical preparations like Tramadol, Buprenorphene etc".
The BRICS, an association of five major emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, had started as a forum for future economic cooperation and for reforming Financial Institutions. The seventh BRICS summit was held in July 2015 in Russia and India shall be hosting the eighth BRICS summit in October in Goa.
In tomorrow's meeting, delegates will deliberate on
drug-related issues including improving information exchange mechanisms on trafficking of synthetic drugs and new psychoactive substances, early detection of new psycho active substances, maritime drug trafficking and diversion of precursors and controlled chemicals for manufacturing of illicit synthetic drugs.
The delegates would also focus on capacity-building and training of personnel of enforcement agencies as well as rehabilitation and re-socialisation of drug addicts.
The meeting is being organised by India's Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and it will be attended by delegates from the member countries, the envoys of the five countries, an official statement said.
The directors general of border guarding forces and the paramilitary are also expected to attend the inaugural session along with the heads of the agencies like the Intelligence Bureau and the Central Bureau of Investigation.
In accordance with the 'eThekwani Declaration' adopted during the BRICS summit in March 2013 at Durban (South Africa) it was decided to explore, besides economic issues, various new areas of cooperation among the member States, including drug related issues.
It was decided that the heads of anti-drug agencies of the five member countries may meet regularly under the aegis of the BRICS anti-drug working group.
In keeping with the spirit of the eThekwani Declaration, the first anti-drug working group meeting of BRICS countries was organised at Moscow in November 2015.
