By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, April 9: Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Wednesday said the results of the state’s Drug Reduction Elimination and Action Mission (DREAM) have not been satisfactory.
He said much more needs to be done through DREAM, launched in June 2023, to make Meghalaya drug-free.
“The results are showing, but I’m not happy. There’s much more to be done, and we want the state to be completely drug-free. We are looking at it as a war against drugs, so we’ll have to work much harder,” he said.
“Drug addiction has come down in the state, but I do not have the figures at this point in time,” he said.
On Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s suggestion that all the northeastern states should fight the drug menace together, Sangma said: “The Assam CM’s call is right. We all need to work together because it’s a region with many (trafficking) routes, and the intel information (network) in different states needs to be coordinated.”
He said the Assam and Meghalaya governments are working closely, sharing intel, and taking necessary actions. “It will be much more coordinated in the future,” he added.
“For the first time, there is a very strong, concerted, and coordinated effort by the central government, the state governments, within their states and the region as a whole. The coordination is taking place to fight against this drug menace. I can tell you that this is yielding huge results, because the number of people getting caught is up,” Sangma said.
“More and more people involved in this are being caught, which is a good thing, but the frequency of (drug) supply is going up too, and that’s why more and more people are being caught. The police have a strong intelligence network, and therefore, on an overall scale, we are seeing things improving, but there is a long way to go,” he said.
Stating that a lot of investments and structures have been made in the past, he said: “The task force is working very aggressively and successfully. We have put up our labs to test the drugs so that we’re able to immediately charge sheet the person concerned, so that, you know, they don’t go scot-free just simply because of procedural matters, which used to happen in the past.”
Sangma said efforts are on to break the drug supply chain and target the distribution network. “We are also focusing on the rehabilitation of the users and their counselling,” he said.