DRUG ABUSE – POLITY
News: Centre
inks MoU with Art of Living as part of Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan
What's in the news?
● The
Department of Social Justice and Empowerment signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with Art of Living,
the NGO run by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, as part of its Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan
(NMBA) in a ceremony attended by the spiritual leader, and Social Justice
Minister Virendra Kumar.
Key takeaways:
● The
MoU being signed with Art of Living would result in AoL centres promoting the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan
and running de-addiction workshops and campaigns.
● In
places where AoL centres are not there, the MoU will empower it to work with
the government to run such campaigns.
Deaddiction centres: The
NMBA currently supports the running of 508 centres in 372 vulnerable districts,
which include different types of de-addiction
and counselling centres.
Community inclusive programme:
These include community-based peer-led intervention programmes, integrated
rehabilitation and counselling centres, drug de-addiction centres, and
addiction treatment facilities, as well as providing treatment protocols for
different levels of addiction to various substances.
Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan:
● Year:
15-Aug - 2020
● It
was flagged off across 272 districts of
the country found to be most vulnerable based on the data available from
various sources.
Focal points:
● Its
focal points are preventive, mass
education and sensitization, capacity building of service providers,
positive partnership with educational institutions, and augmentation of
treatment, rehabilitation and counselling facilities.
Nodal Ministry: Ministry
of Social Justice & Empowerment
Objectives:
● Awareness
generation programmes.
● Focus
on higher educational Institutions, university campuses and schools.
● Reaching
out to the Community and identifying dependent populations.
● Focus
on counselling and treatment facilities in hospitals and rehabilitation centres
that have been geo-tagged.
● Capacity
building programmes for service providers.
Voluntary Organisations Involvement:
● Nasha
Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan is operational with the involvement of more than 500 voluntary organizations across
the country, which are assisted financially under the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction (NAPDDR) scheme of the
Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.
Other Indian initiatives:
National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction:
● This
Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment has begun implementation of a
National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction (NAPDDR) for 2018-2025.
● It
aims at reduction of adverse
consequences of drug abuse through a multi-pronged strategy involving
education, de-addiction and rehabilitation of affected individuals and their
families.
● It
focuses on preventive education, awareness generation, identification,
counselling, treatment and rehabilitation of drug-dependent persons and
training and capacity building of the service providers through collaborative
efforts of the Central and State Governments and Non-Governmental Organizations.
● Over
5000 NGOs have been financed under the scheme.
International Initiatives:
● Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961.
● The
Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971.
● The
UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
Substances, 1988.
● India
is a signatory to all three and has enacted the Narcotics Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.
● Every
year, the UN publishes a World Drug
Report.