As the tourism season picks up pace, Goa is feeling the shivers of narcotics. While there’s nothing new to the circulation of drugs, the trend of drugs being manufactured in Goa is very disturbing. A drug laboratory in Anjuna was found with raw materials to produce drugs believed to be worth more than Rs 1 crore. An Austrian was operating a lab to produce amphetamine drug powder and GBL liquid. This is one of the many reports of home-grown narcotics. Cannabis plants were found to be cultivated at Aradi-Candolim in December last year. This year there have been four cases of home-grown narcotics coming to light. Nearly 100 kg of ketamine and raw material used to manufacture the drug was found at an industrial unit in Bicholim during a DRI raid in June. A Russian national was found to be growing marijuana in a greenhouse set up inside a bungalow in Siolim in July while in August, a 23-year old boy was arrested for cultivating ganja at Mangor, Vasco. And in October, a foreigner was found growing cannabis plants in his garden at Alto Porvorim.
Narcotics have been dominating the shady underbelly of Goa’s tourism. Alarm bells have been ringing for quite some time over the State turning into an international hub for drug trafficking and the police-politico nexus. There has been tough talk, mudslinging and hypocrisy on Goa going the Udta Punjab way. Amid all this, the fact that foreigners have taken to growing drugs in Goa to bypass the middlemen only goes to show the huge demand and the big bucks involved in narcotics.
But who is responsible for this? If foreigners are using rented premises to carry out narcotics manufacturing, then a huge onus also lies on the landlords who overlook tenant verification. Why should the police not book such landlords who are providing these foreigners a safe haven for nefarious activities?
The trend is catching up fast and threatens to take the drug story to a new high. No amount of chest thumping by vested politicians can address this issue, neither can the sporadic police raids help. The people of Goa need to rise up to this threat. Fingers of suspicion have always been raised at policemen, politicians and the numerous drug lords that operate in tandem. But very little has been spoken about shacks, restaurants and pubs which facilitate this drug exchange. If late-night rave parties are known to be playing to the tunes of the drug lobbies, why do these parties go unchecked? There was a time when Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar denied that rave parties are happening in Goa, till the time when he was shown posters of raves in nooks and corners of the northern coastal belt, especially Calanagute, Candolim, Anjuna and Arpora.
The home-grown crop of cannabis, ganja and ketamine has given the drug story a different spin. It’s time Goans wake up and uproot this evil before it spreads its tentacles in the hinterland too.
