News
Stamp out drug menace in North, President tells relevant officials
President Maithripala Sirisena ordered the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB) to take immediate measures and stamp out the drug menace in the North. The President has directed the NDDCB to work in coordination with the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), a senior official of the Board Dr.Chamira Nilanga Samarasingha, NDDCB Chairman told the Sunday Times.
A formal meeting between the NPC Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran and the officials of the Board is scheduled to be held tomorrow in Colombo to formulate policies on controlling the current situation of drug usage and consumption of alcohol in the Province.
The directives comes after President Sirisena visited the North on May 16 following the rape incident of a school girl in Pungudutivu where he met civil society members and students of seventeen schools. They complained to the President about the drug menace.
Earlier Jaffna’s District Secretary in a letter to the Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police in Jaffna urged the police to act fast to check the rising illicit sale of liquor and drugs in the District and incidence of sexual abuse and exploitation.
He said that the school children’s new found addiction to drugs and banned substances as a “well-planned strategy” aimed at disrupting the social fabric of the North. The report names schools, locations and villages vulnerable to the drug menace. Four of the schools named are leading schools in the Jaffna District.
Dr. Samarasingha said that during the past three decades the policies of the Board that were implemented in the rest of the country could not be implemented in the North and East. ”Even after the end of the war we could not take effective action due to the policies of the previous regime. Now we are getting into the social issues that are rampant in the North,” he said.
Dr. Samarasingha said the Board in its capacity will offer every service including preventive education, awareness programmes and rehabilitation but community support is a must to eliminate this menace completely. Mr. Wigneswaran told the Sunday Times that though this would be the first time the NPC is going to collaborate with the central government to address social issues in the Province directly having a dialogue with a government body.
“We have been coordinating with the Government on several other projects but this is the first time we have come together to put a full stop to this issue that affects the whole country,” he said. Results of a research study done by the NDDCB on drug usage and other social issues in the Province will be shared with the NPC administration.