Narcotics Law: It's Not Just About Celebrities

NCB, police use vague rules of NDPS Act. The biggest victims are the poor

- Neha Singhal

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) increasingly employs private WhatsApp chats of alleged drug consumers and claims this is a means to crack narcotics trafficking. It has deployed the same tactic in the Mumbai cruise ship case. But it is not alone in overzealous attention on consumers as opposed to traffickers. The Mumbai police does it all the time when enforcing the NDPS Act.

Look at the numbers

Numbers tell us how unsuccessful the Mumbai police has been. Arrests for personal consumption accounted for 93.3% of all arrests in Mumbai under the NDPS Act in 2020, 95.6% of all arrests in 2019, and 97.3% of all arrests in 2018. While 3,274 consumers were arrested in 2020, only 235 were arrested for trafficking or peddling. In 2019, the corresponding numbers were 11,872 and 546.

Often, narcotics investigations are in bad faith. In NCB’s Mumbai case, Aryan Khan was detained even though no substances were found on him, and no tests were conducted. Then, a whole catalogue of offences – consumption of drugs, possession of cannabis, attempt to commit an offence under the NDPS Act, criminal conspiracy – were added.