Four-pronged strategy keeps peddlers in check

Hyderabad: A four-pronged strategy adopted by the Prohibition and Excise department in coordination with the Police department in controlling the menace of smuggling marijuana has yielded good results with almost all the repeat offenders cooling their heels in various prisons across the State.

The same strategy also enabled the Excise department to make the dingy lanes of Dhoolpet free of marijuana sales. For the last three months, there was no major activity in Dhoolpet and its environs on sale of marijuana, officials said.

Following instructions from Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao to declare all-out war against drugs in October, the police and excise departments chalked out an action plan and started cracking the whip on the peddlers. Since most peddlers were getting the contraband substance from agency areas in Araku near Visakhapatnam, the police and excise officials set up separate check-posts on the borders between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to check vehicles.

Apart from intensifying the crackdown on peddlers, the excise department also focused on counseling consumers explaining the adverse effects of consuming marijuana. The counseling sessions were conducted in the presence of the parents of consumers, officials said.

On their part, Telangana police came up with a special software – Drug Offenders, Analysis and Monitoring System (DOPAMS) for profiling, monitoring and analysis of cases booked under Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

Explaining the strategy adopted by the law enforcement agencies to the curb drug menace, Dhoolpet Excise Superintendent K Naveen Kumar told Telangana Today that the department first identified repeat offenders in drug cases and later initiated action against them.

As a result, over 70 repeat offenders from Dhoolpet were presently lodged in jails while surveillance was enhanced on those who were released from prison and the areas notorious for sale of marijuana.

Focus was on conducting counseling to consumers apart from conducting decoy operations to nab peddlers. These measures helped the excise department in making Dhoolpet free of marijuana sale, Kumar added.

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