I remember a conversation during one of my visits to a district jail in Kota, Rajasthan. The Jail Superintendent, a professionally committed woman whom I happened to know, spoke candidly about a problem that appeared to trouble her deeply. A large number of inmates, she said, were addicted to smack, the common street name for heroin. Her fear was not simply that prisoners were consuming drugs. She worried that an inmate, intoxicated or desperate because the substance was unavailable, could at any time attack another prisoner.
She urged me to use whatever influence I had to persuade the authorities to establish a proper de-addiction and rehabilitation facility inside the jail. What struck me even more was what she said informally: despite preventive measures, drugs somehow continued to find their way into the prison.
That conversation revealed something that statistics often conceal. Addiction does not stop at the prison gate. Nor does it begin there. It travels through families, neighbourhoods, schools, workplaces, streets and criminal networks – and, sometimes, into prisons. India’s drug problem therefore deserves to be examined beyond the ‘war on drugs’.
A Crisis Larger Than the Seizure Statistics
India’s 2018 national survey, published in February 2019, estimated that about 3.1 crore people used cannabis products and 2.26 crore used opioids; among adults aged 18-75, the corresponding estimates were about 2.9 crore and 1.9 crore. It also found substantial numbers of people requiring treatment for substance-use disorders. The survey described a wide gap between the need for treatment and the availability of services. These figures are not a 2026 prevalence estimate; they remain the principal national baseline. That distinction matters.
The problem is also much wider than heroin and cannabis. Pharmaceutical opioids and sedatives, synthetic drugs, stimulants, inhalants and new psychoactive substances are complicating the landscape. The Narcotics Control Bureau’s recent operations illustrate how India’s drug market is becoming increasingly sophisticated, involving synthetic drugs, darknet networks, cryptocurrency, clandestine laboratories and international trafficking.
The government has consequently expanded its response through rehabilitation, outreach, district de-addiction and addiction-treatment facilities, alongside the NashaMukt Bharat Abhiyaan. But the scale of the challenge remains formidable.
From Consumer to Peddler
One of the least discussed aspects of addiction is the way it can reproduce the drug market. India’s own National Policy on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances acknowledges that many street peddlers are themselves addicts. They sell drugs partly to finance their own consumption, becoming the final link between traffickers and consumers. This creates a vicious cycle:
experimentation → dependence → financial desperation → petty dealing → wider distribution → new users → new addicts.
The person standing at the bottom of the chain may therefore be simultaneously an offender and a victim of a much larger commercial system.
This does not absolve anyone of criminal responsibility. But it does raise an important question: should the person financing an international trafficking network and the dependent young man selling small quantities to fund his own addiction be approached in precisely the same way?
A serious drug policy must be capable of distinguishing between the kingpin, the financier, the professional trafficker, the street peddler, the addicted courier and the person whose principal problem is dependence.
When Addiction Becomes a Security Issue
There is also a genuine national-security dimension, and it should neither be exaggerated nor dismissed. India’s location between the Golden Crescent and Golden Triangle exposes it to major international trafficking routes. Along the western border, Indian agencies have documented cases involving cross-border supplies of heroin and other narcotics, including consignments delivered by drones.
In November 2025, the NIA said it had uncovered an inter-state arms-and-narcotics network across Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, allegedly linked to neighbour-countries-based associates. It alleged that drugs and weapons were delivered by drones and that the network targeted young people by pushing psychotropic substances to fuel addiction and exploitation. The investigation remains ongoing.
The allegation warrants serious investigation, but careful journalism. It does not establish that all drug trafficking in India is foreign-directed, or that Muslim youth are systematically targeted. What the evidence does justify examining is the specific intersection of drugs, organised crime, cross-border trafficking and terrorism. A documented network is a fact; claims about its ultimate sponsors remain allegations until established by evidence.
Are Vulnerable Muslim Youth Being Targeted?
Concerns have also been raised that Muslim youth may be deliberately targeted – first introduced to drugs, then made dependent and eventually drawn into the drug trade or other crimes. This is an important question, but one that must be investigated rather than assumed.
Evidence shows that vulnerable young people can be deliberately recruited and exploited, and that addiction can make them susceptible to criminal networks. But there is insufficient national evidence to conclude that Muslim youth are systematically targeted simply because they are Muslim.
The more defensible question is broader: Are organised networks identifying vulnerable youth, irrespective of religion, and exploiting addiction, unemployment, poverty, alienation and the search for easy money? If so, Muslim-majority and economically deprived communities deserve careful investigation without either stigmatising them or overlooking their vulnerabilities.
The Prison Behind the Prison
My conversation in Kota jail now appears even more significant. If, as the superintendent told me, drugs could reach the prison despite surveillance and restrictions, the question is not simply how the drugs entered. The more important question is why so many inmates are dependent in the first place.
A prison containing large numbers of addicted people needs more than walls, guards and searches. It needs addiction specialists, counselling, withdrawal management, opioid-substitution treatment where clinically appropriate, psychiatric support and rehabilitation. Otherwise, imprisonment can become merely an interruption in the cycle.
An addict enters prison, suffers withdrawal or seeks drugs inside, completes a sentence and returns to the same environment without treatment. The probability of returning to the same network remains. Punishment without rehabilitation may therefore fail both the prisoner and society.
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