Politics Kills, Grass Does Not

Sixtyseven days before the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput was born in Patna on January 21 1986 Indias hallowed tradition of the use of cannabis began to change because of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances NDPS Act coming into force At one stroke was prohibited all types of narcotics including cannabis products other than bhangThe NDPS Act decreed that anyone caught possessing far less than even the small quantity of marijuana and hashish mdash defined as 1000 grams of the former and 100 grams of the latter mdash could be imprisoned for up to six months or fined to the extent of Rs 10000 or bothUntil the NDPS Act came into force Sushants city of birth had a fair sprinkling of shops with signboards declaring Sarkari ganja aur bhang ki dukan It was from here the hoi polloi bought their tickets to bliss or respite as did the children of Patnas elite many of them students of Delhi UniversityOn their return from holiday breaks students would tap government shops to ferry 50 to 100 grams of marijuana to Delhi where scoring even inferior quality of dope invariably entailed a trip to a shady alley or a seedy kiosk masquerading as a teashop Patnas Manipuri grass would enliven the first fortnight of every academic session at Delhi UniversityIts alumni can easily identify who among bureaucrats police officers media personalities corporate honchos and even members of the judiciary tripped on cannabis Yet few among todays power elite will confess to having smoked weed in their student daysAmong the exceptions is MP Tathagata Satpathy who in 2015 publicly confessed to having smoked pot in his younger days Arguing for the removal of the ban on cannabis Satpathy said The thinking is that if you hold a wine glass people will consider you belonging to the upper class You roll a joint and people will call you charsi It is an elitist biasA combination of elitism and hypocrisy has had people rage against actor Rhea Chakraborty for allegedly securing marijuana for Sushant Grass did not kill Sushant although it may have given him a bum trip as it always can Arrested under the NDPS Act Rhea has denied ever having smoked potEven if Rhea had smoked she would have had to deny it This is because the NDPS Act does not define what constitutes consumption As Neha Singhal and Naveed Ahmad in a piece for the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy website wrote Does having consumed a narcotichellipat any point in your life however many years ago make you vulnerable to criminal sanctions for the rest of your life The Act does not provide a clueRhea would not have been in the woods had Parliament passed a private members bill of Dharma Vira Gandhi a former MP which was admitted and tabled in 2016 but could not be taken up for discussion Gandhis bill sought to amend the NDPS Act and classify drugs in soft and hard categories The bill sought to legalise and regulate the cultivation production sale and consumption of soft drugs mdash marijuana hashish opium and opium huskGandhi sought to also decriminalise the consumption of hard drugs mdash smack heroin cocaine and pharmaceutical opioids Their users according to the bill could not be sent to prison Repeat offenders could be fined up to R20000 or sent to a rehabilitation centre or asked to render community service or all three togetherAs a cardiologist I can tell you cannabis is a nonlethal nonkiller substance Drug addicts need treatment not imprisonment Gandhi told me The rationale behind his bill was that with the supply of soft drugs squeezed consumers would turn to hard drugs which cause physical and psychological addiction and degrade them Drug mafia push these lethal alternatives because the profits reaped from them in comparison to cannabis are massiveIndeed a 2018 survey of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences showed that the prevalence of heroin use had grown double to that of opium over the last 14 years In 2004 05 per cent of Indians consumed opium and 02 per cent heroin In 2018 114 per cent of Indians were using heroin as against 05 per cent of them consuming opium Heroin is inarguably the most addictive and harmful of drugsThe NDPS Act was enacted under the pressure of the United States which had then declared a war on drugs Since then 17 of its states have decriminalised cannabis Some have even legalised it California for instance allows commercial sale of cannabis its residents can possess 30 grams of marijuana and grow six cannabis plants for personal use Canada too has legalised cannabis In Portugal possession of drugs is not legal but in a specified quantity only leads to the possessor being sent for counselling or paying a small fineAs middleclass hypocrisy claims Rhea as its victim she would perhaps like to hum Bob Dylans lines hellipI would not feel so all aloneEverybody must get stoned Without fear with the certainty that grass unlike politics does not killThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paperKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news