Workshop held on drug abuse

Dharmavaram: One-day workshop and capacity building on drug prevention and substance abuse was organised at the seminar hall of Sri Sai Krupa

College here on Friday, by MyBharat, NYK Anantapur, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India in collaboration with Pragathi Padham Youth Association.

Bisathi Bharath, national awardee, Union government MyGov Ambassador; Dr Garugu Balaji MD; Kuruba Jaya Maruthi, president of India Awardee; Principal Purushottham Reddy, youth leaders and others participated in the programme.

Speaking on the ocassion, Bisathi Bharath said that drug abuse is one of the most serious health problems faced by the world today, which not only destroys the person involved, but his entire family, society and the nation at large and spawns antisocial behaviour such as stealing, crime and violence. Drug abuse adversely affects the economic growth of a country by generating un-accounted money in large quantity that are also often used to fund terror and an ti-national activities and therefore posing a serious threat to the national security too.

Balaji stated that to tackle the problem of illegal drugs, the Parliament passed ‘Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act’ of 1985 as a comprehensive legislation on narcotics, providing for stringent and long-term prison sentences and heavy fines for offenders. He said the government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy to deal with drugs control by establishing enforcement agencies like Narcotic Control Bureau, Narcotics Control Division, Department of Central excise & customs, revenue intelligence & para-military and armed forces.

All the youth along with the officials took pledge to make India drug-free by 2047 and certificates were distributed to the trained youth.