Team Herald

MAPUSA: Does Goa need drug rehabilitation and detention centre?

The rise in the number of NDPS cases in Goa, especially along the coastal belts where at least one case gets registered every second day, is an indication of the number of drug peddlers and addicts inhibiting the coastal belts.

Calangute being the queen of beaches, cases under the NDPS Act get registered frequently.

Cracking down on the drug menace, police have seized drugs worth around Rs 45 lakh and arrested 63 persons since August 13 till date. Of the 63 arrested, 24 are Goan residents, 33 are from other States and six are foreign nationals.

Police sources say that at least 50 persons have been identified as drug addicts in Calangute alone. However, the same source estimates that there could be another 100 addicts who have not been identified. Similarly, sources from Anjuna say that 65 persons have been identified as drugs addicts in that village and unidentified ones could be another hundred.

To rehabilitate the drug addicts and bring them back to normal life, ‘Be Positive’, an NGO, had opened a centre at Venor Plaza in Calangute, where it provided limited quantity of drugs to keep the addicts under control. However, instead of taking advantage of the centre and get themselves rehabilitated, source say, the drug addicts used to keep loitering at the centre day and night pestering the activist for drugs.

The NGO has now closed down the centre after the government failed to renew its contract. However, the addicts could still be seen loitering at the centre.

Acting on a complaint by the residents of Venor Plaza last week, the Calangute panchayat and ward member Sudesh Mayekar have now decided to send these addicts to rehabilitation centres outside the State. 

“There are rehabilitation centres in Belgum and Karwar where we are planning to shift these addicts. Presently there are 50 identified drug addicts and we intent to shift them there for treatment,” Mayekar said. 

Mayekar opined that “It is high time that Goa has its own rehabilitation Centre, because just like garbage, stray cattle and other menace, the issue of drug addiction is a major one and is on the rise. Taking this issue seriously, the government should acquire land and start the project.”

Other panchayats along the north coastal belt concur with view of the Calangute panchayat on a rehabilitation centre for drug additcts.

Meanwhile, police sources say that drug addiction leads to other crimes too, such as, assault, threat, snatching of valuables and even burglary: when the addicts run out of money for buying drugs, they resort to snatching of valuables, attacking people for money and have even burgled flats and houses in Calangute.

Earlier, the addicts were concentrated at Calangute market area, but now with the police cracking down on the drug menace, they have spread all around the village causing trouble to the residents.