Opium in Manipur: Police takes the front-seat over checking poppy cultivation

A video raising awareness against illicit poppy or cannabis cultivation and the penal provisions under NDPS Act 1985 (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985) was released by the Manipur Police on Wednesday.

Speaking in the video, Wantham Basu Singh, MPS, (Manipur Police Service) SP-NAB, (Superintendent-Narcotics And Affairs of Border) have said that poppies are cultivated in the hills and these can re-produce brown sugar and heroin. He further stated that the Manipur Police had dismantled six laboratories used in the making of brown sugar and heroin from poppies last year.

Wanthan Basu Singh further spoke about the felling of trees to cultivate poppies that have caused an ecological imbalance leading to landslides and floods to this biological hotspot region of the Northeast.

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While cultivating poppies, common salt is used which makes the soil infertile, pollute water bodies causing health hazard and affecting the food chain by importing vegetables from outside the state.

He further stated that under section 46 of the NDPS Act 1985, if the landholders are cultivating poppies and have not informed the related departments for the same, they will be liable to spend 6 months in jail.