Kerala’s Drug Crisis | A war on users, a win for cartels

Kerala’s war on drugs is increasingly a war on symptoms, not on syndicates.

The recent arrests of rapper Vedan, and film director Khalid Rahman, and the recent viral video chase of actor Shine Tom Chacko for alleged substance use, are not an anomaly; it is a window into how the state’s drug enforcement machinery functions — noisy, reactive, and largely misdirected. Celebrities are paraded. Students are arrested. Occasional raids fill newspaper columns. But the real business — the trafficking of synthetic drugs through organised networks — is booming in the shadows. What masquerades as action is often nothing more than performative disruption.

Theatrics over threat

Recent excise seizures in Alappuzha revealed WhatsApp evidence linking multiple film personalities to the use of high-potency cannabis smuggled from Southeast Asia.

Investigations suggest a deliberate targeting of actors by cartels — likely because celebrities are a lucrative market, and because their arrests offer law enforcement a quick reputational boost. But the deeper ecosystem that imports, finances, and protects chemical drug sales and operations is rarely touched. This is not incidental, but structural.

A law built to fail

India’s current legal regime on narcotic substances is governed by the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. The Act did not emerge from an urgent domestic public health crisis — it was largely a response to international pressure, particularly from the United States.

Following the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which India ratified in 1964, there was growing diplomatic insistence — especially from the Ronald Reagan administration’s global ‘War on Drugs’ — that nations adopt stringent, and centralised narcotics laws. Until then, India had governed intoxicants through a mosaic of state laws and colonial statutes. But by the early 1980s, the pressure to conform intensified, with fears that non-alignment with the UN framework could affect trade and development financing.

Legal scholars have noted that the NDPS Act was passed ‘in a hurry’ and ‘without adequate debate’, under ‘external influence rather than internal necessity’ (See: Bhatnagar, G. “NDPS Act: Harsh and Unjust?”, Economic and Political Weekly, 1987; Goyal, K.K. “Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985: A Critique”, Journal of Indian Law Institute, 1986.

Notably, narcotic regulation — including cultivation, production, and sale of intoxicating liquors and drugs — is a State subject under Entry 8 of the State List in the Constitution. It was only under the cover of international treaty compliance that Parliament stepped into this domain, invoking Article 253 of the Constitution. Yet, the very basis of this exceptional intervention has shifted — because the international covenant itself has changed.

In 2020, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs voted to remove cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Convention, based on recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence, which acknowledged its therapeutic benefits and clarified that cannabis does not share the fatality risks of opioids like heroin. India too voted in its favour.

Despite the scientific evidence and global policy shift, we are still stuck in 1961.

What parliamentarians knew

Even during the passage of the NDPS Act, members of Parliament like Ajay Mushran cautioned that the legislation was excessively harsh, particularly for substances like cannabis. He highlighted that the law would trap thousands for possessing trivial quantities, enabling corruption and destroying lives without ever touching the core of dangerous trafficking networks (Lok Sabha Debates, August 23, 1985).

Mushran’s concern was not rhetorical. Today, Kerala’s NDPS enforcement profile reveals that more than 90% of cases relate to small personal quantities. Yet the criminality ascribed to these minor offences remains undifferentiated from those involving international trafficking. Shifting focus to the irrelevant makes the relevant indistinguishable.

One Act, many states

What makes the NDPS regime even more indefensible is the vast disparity in its enforcement across states.

In Himachal Pradesh’s Malana valley, for instance, the cultivation of cannabis has been an open secret for decades — tolerated, selectively cracked down upon, and even tacitly integrated into local economies. In parts of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, enforcement is inconsistent, often driven by political cycles and local lobbying.

The disparities in NDPS enforcement become even starker when we look eastward. In many parts of the North-East — especially in Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh — substance use is deeply entangled with insurgency economies, porous borders, and socio-political instability. Cannabis grows wild in many pockets and is used traditionally in tribal medicine and ritual. Yet, prosecutions are sporadic, and the focus remains on intercepting transnational synthetic drug routes rather than penalising local users.

Compare this to Kerala, where even hostel room searches for cannabis are treated with the urgency of anti-terror operations. The same NDPS Act, thus, morphs entirely depending on geography — accommodating cultural nuance in one state, bypassing political complexity in another, and unleashing carceral fervour in a third. Such fragmented enforcement exposes the core weakness of our narcotics policy: it is not anchored in public health or justice, but in optics.

This schizophrenia in application makes a mockery of the idea of uniform law. The same plant, the same Act, and the same amount can mean a shrug in one state and a prison sentence in another. If the law itself is central, but its spirit is hostage to regional discretion, then it is not a law — it is a lottery.

Cannabis: from cultural knowledge to legal stigma

Cannabis has been used in Indian medicine and religion for centuries. It is listed in the Atharva Veda as a sacred plant, referred to in classical Ayurvedic texts like the Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita, and remains a staple in Shaivite rituals. The 1894 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission — one of the most exhaustive colonial-era drug studies — concluded that moderate cannabis consumption was socially acceptable and medically benign.

We criminalised cannabis even as we allowed alcohol, tobacco, and opium derivatives under various regulatory regimes. The contradiction is so severe that bhang — made from cannabis leaves — is still legally sold in some states, while ganja and charas, derived from the same plant, attract non-bailable offences.

Though India has long ignored a serious rethinking of cannabis policy, academic attention is finally gathering. A 2023 article in the Indian Journal of Social Psychiatry titled ‘Legalization of Recreational Cannabis: Is India Ready?’ concluded that India may not yet be prepared for outright legalisation but urgently needs structured policy dialogue and preparedness frameworks before its urban youth turn to synthetic alternatives.

Similarly, a review in the Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine has highlighted the lack of quality Indian research on cannabis use and policy outcomes, calling for evidence-based frameworks before further criminalisation or liberalisation. There are also grassroots advocacy efforts such as the Great Legalisation Movement India, pushing for informed public discourse and regulation around cannabis, particularly for medical and industrial use. These developments show that even within India, the binary of ‘legalise or criminalise’ is giving way to a call for intelligent, and tiered regulation.

Synthetic drugs thrive

What the State fails — or refuses — to recognise is that every hour spent chasing liquor infractions and ganja pouches is an hour gifted to the synthetic drug industry. While cannabis users are arrested and shamed, MDMA, methamphetamine, LSD, and new-age psychotropics enter through encrypted supply chains with near impunity. It is not easy to apprehend or prosecute chemical drug syndicates.

Seizure data from Kerala’s excise department confirms that synthetic drugs now dominate the illicit narcotics market. While cannabis users account for a large number of arrests, it is MDMA, LSD, and methamphetamine that drive the real volumes and profits. Reports from intelligence agencies and narcotics control units indicate that the logistics of distribution have shifted decisively into encrypted messaging platforms, digital wallets, and anonymous drop networks. Yet enforcement continues to rely on analogue-era rituals — raiding toddy shops, checking rural bars for expired licences, and conducting ganja sweeps in student hostels. The contradiction is no longer bureaucratic. It is existential.

The cost of criminalising suffering

Kerala has one of the highest suicide rates in India — over 10,000 lives lost in 2022 alone. Mental health professionals consistently flag substance abuse as a key contributing factor. Many of those who encounter the NDPS regime are not hardened criminals, but vulnerable youth who require medical attention and psychosocial care.

The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 recognised this by decriminalising suicide attempts and framing them as medical emergencies requiring treatment. Addiction must be approached with the same logic. To punish dependency is to punish illness.

Administrative apathy and the cess that wasn’t

Kerala collects a de-addiction cess on liquor. Between 2014 and 2018, it amassed over ₹1,059 crore — but spent barely ₹31 crore on actual de-addiction services.

The money remains parked in treasury accounts, unused, while rehabilitation centres beg for funding, and the public health system buckles under rising cases of youth dependency. There can be no clearer example of the bureaucracy saying one thing and doing another.

The real reform is in facing reality

The question is not whether cannabis should be legalised or beverages with less alcohol content be made available, but whether the State will continue to enforce a law whose international justification no longer exists, whose cultural erasure is unconvincing, and whose utility in protecting public health is entirely unsupported by science or data.

Kerala should abandon the euphoria of theatrical enforcement and confront the far more difficult task of dismantling chemical drug syndicates. We can no longer afford to chase petty ganja users for headlines while synthetic traffickers expand their networks unchecked.

The real threat to our children, our cities, and our sovereignty lies not in the rolling paper but in the laboratory-grade poison entering through unmonitored channels. The business of enforcement must now shift from drama to discipline — from rounding up the visible to targeting the powerful who are silent and invisible.

This is not just a law-and-order imperative — it is a test of administrative honesty. Reform is not radical; in the context of Kerala’s drug crisis, reform is simply common sense.

Prasanth Nair is a civil servant and author. X: @PrasanthIAS.