Amarinder Singh today urged the Centre to evolve a national policy to curb drug menace with a coordinated strategy in place to check the smuggling of narcotics from across the border.
The chief minister asked the Centre to take a series of measures to support the state's efforts to fight the menace, which, he observed, was "seriously impairing the future of our next generation."
"We need full and active support from the Government of India in formulating and pursuing effective measures including a national policy for prevention and control of drug abuse," Singh's letter to the home minister said, according to an official spokesperson here.
Amarinder Singh urged the Union Home Ministry to ensure an effective check by the BSF on smuggling of drugs from across the border, besides restrictions on farming of drug producing plants in neighbouring states.
The Punjab Police has detected and caught huge quantities of heroin and other drugs smuggled from across the international border, said the chief minister. "The intelligence gathered by us in this regard is regularly shared with the BSF, but unfortunately, the smuggling continues unabated to the detriment of our society," he added.
The chief minister said his government was aggressively chasing peddlers and smugglers to obliterate the drug menace from the state, said the official spokesperson.
Besides making efforts to provide drug addicts with proper treatment, the state government's strategy, based on strict enforcement of laws, de-addiction and prevention of drug abuse, has begun yielding good results, the chief minister was quoted as saying.
Seeking to attract the Centre's attention towards the campaign against drugs by the people of Punjab for the last few weeks, Amarinder Singh said the drive has resulted in a "substantial increase" in people approaching drug rehabilitation centres and Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment (OOAT) Centres set up by the state government.
"While we will continue with our efforts to check the menace of drugs, it is felt that certain measures need to be taken at the level of the Government of India," he said in the letter.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)