Addressing Drug Addiction: Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Policy

Drug addiction is no longer a problem confined to a few states or vulnerable pockets. It cuts across age groups, income levels and regions, straining families, the healthcare system and law enforcement alike. To respond to this challenge, the government relies on a structured framework built around the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Policy. This policy ties together legislation, enforcement, treatment and prevention into a single coordinated effort. Understanding how it works helps explain why drug control is treated as both a criminal justice issue and a social welfare priority.

The scale of the problem
From a legal vacuum to a comprehensive law
The role of the NDPS Act, 1985
The NDPS Policy: a guiding framework
Who implements the policy
The three-pronged strategy
Supply reduction
Demand reduction
Harm reduction
Turning policy into action on the ground
NAPDDR and Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan
International cooperation and alignment with global goals
Where the framework struggles
Why this matters for social welfare

The scale of the problem

Any serious discussion of drug policy has to begin with the numbers, because they reveal why the issue demands a dedicated framework. The most authoritative picture comes from the 2019 national survey, “Magnitude of Substance Use in India”, conducted by the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre at AIIMS, New Delhi, for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

The survey found that alcohol is the most commonly used psychoactive substance, with nearly 15% of the population aged 10-75 (about 16 crore people) consuming it. After alcohol, cannabis and opioids follow. Around 2.1% of the population, roughly 2.26 crore people, use opioids, with heroin being the most common. Worryingly, the prevalence of opioid use here is about three times the global average.

The treatment gap is just as concerning as the prevalence. Among people dependent on alcohol, only about one in 38 reports receiving any treatment, and access to services for substance use disorders is generally inadequate. These figures explain why policy cannot stop at punishment alone. It must also build systems for treatment, rehabilitation and prevention.

From a legal vacuum to a comprehensive law

For decades, there was no single law governing narcotics in the country. Until 1985, cannabis and its derivatives like bhang, charas and marijuana were sold legally, and their use had long been socially accepted. The shift came from international obligations rather than purely domestic pressure.

The role of the NDPS Act, 1985

The legal backbone of the entire framework is the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. It came into force on 14 November 1985 and prohibits the production, manufacture, cultivation, possession, sale, purchase, transport, storage and consumption of any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance. The law was enacted to fulfil treaty commitments under three United Nations conventions on narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, as well as obligations flowing from Article 47 of the Constitution, which directs the State to work towards prohibition of intoxicating drinks and drugs that are injurious to health.

What the terms mean. Narcotic drugs are substances such as opium, cannabis, coca leaf and poppy straw that typically induce sleep or dull the senses. Psychotropic substances are natural or synthetic materials that act on the mind, listed in the schedule attached to the Act. Importantly, the law also makes room for legitimate medical and scientific use, so the cultivation of cannabis, poppy and coca and the manufacture of certain psychotropic substances are regulated rather than banned outright.

The Act is deliberately stringent. Its key features include making drug offences non-bailable, providing the death penalty for certain repeat offences, allowing the freezing and forfeiture of assets linked to drug crimes, and establishing a National Fund for the Control of Drug Abuse. The Act has been amended four times, in 1988, 2001, 2014 and 2021, to refine penalties and close gaps as the nature of trafficking evolved.

The NDPS Policy: a guiding framework

While the Act provides the legal teeth, the policy provides the strategy. The first National Policy on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was released in 2012, prepared by the Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance. This document does not replace the law. Instead, it sets out how different agencies should coordinate their efforts and where the priorities lie.

One feature that often surprises students is that the policy is anchored in the Ministry of Finance rather than a health or social welfare ministry. This reflects the heavy emphasis on revenue, regulation and control of legal cultivation in the early framing of drug policy. The 2012 policy aligns closely with the supply reduction strategies of the NDPS Act, although it also contains dedicated sections on treatment, rehabilitation and harm reduction.

Who implements the policy

The policy is not the responsibility of a single department. Its implementation involves multiple stakeholders, including the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Beyond the central government, the framework guides state governments, draws on international organisations for cooperation, and relies heavily on non-governmental organisations to deliver services on the ground. This division of labour is what allows the policy to address legal, medical and social aspects at the same time.

The three-pronged strategy

The heart of the NDPS Policy is a three-part approach. Supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction together form the strategy for tackling substance use. Each prong targets a different point in the cycle of addiction, and each is led by different agencies.

Supply reduction

Supply reduction aims to cut off the availability of illegal drugs through enforcement. The Narcotics Control Bureau is the primary enforcing body on this front, carrying out drug seizures, destroying illicit cultivation areas, and running databases such as the NIDAAN portal for narco offenders and the NCORD portal for tracking the source and destination of drugs. The NCB was set up in March 1986 under the provisions of the Act.

Border guarding forces also play a part. Agencies like the Border Security Force, Assam Rifles and Sashastra Seema Bal have been empowered under the NDPS Act to conduct searches, seizures and arrests for illicit trafficking at international borders. However, rising seizure figures cut both ways. Between 2012 and 2021, registered NDPS cases and seized quantities rose sharply, suggesting that despite intensive enforcement, the supply of illegal drugs remains difficult to curb.

Demand reduction

Demand reduction focuses on preventing people from turning to drugs in the first place and helping those already affected. This arm is led mainly by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which is the nodal ministry for drug demand reduction. Its work centres on awareness campaigns, education in schools and colleges, counselling, treatment programmes and training of volunteers.

Harm reduction

Harm reduction is the most debated of the three. It accepts that some users may not stop immediately and focuses on reducing the damage in the meantime. The 2012 policy frames harm reduction mainly around injecting drug users, permitting needle syringe exchange programmes and oral substitution while treating these only as a step towards de-addiction. Many public health experts argue this framing is too restrictive, since coverage of opioid substitution therapy among injecting drug users remains low and the time-limited approach lacks a strong scientific basis.

Turning policy into action on the ground

A framework is only as good as its delivery mechanisms. The main vehicle for the demand reduction side is the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction (NAPDDR), a centrally sponsored scheme implemented by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment from April 2018.

NAPDDR and Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan

NAPDDR works as an umbrella scheme that channels financial assistance to states, union territories and NGOs. Funds support preventive education, capacity building and livelihood support for ex-addicts, while NGOs run facilities such as Integrated Rehabilitation Centres for Addicts, Outreach and Drop-In Centres, and community-based peer-led interventions for adolescents.

The flagship campaign under this plan is the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, launched on 15 August 2020 in the most vulnerable districts, with a focus on awareness in schools and universities, community outreach and identification of dependent populations. The campaign deliberately combines institutional support with community ownership, recognising that addiction cannot be solved by government action alone.

International cooperation and alignment with global goals

Because drug trafficking crosses borders, international cooperation is built into the policy. The framework is rooted in three UN conventions and is meant to support global targets. NAPDDR is designed to align with Sustainable Development Goal 3.5 on prevention and treatment of substance abuse and SDG 16.4 on tackling organised crime, including drug crime.

Where the framework struggles

The NDPS framework is comprehensive on paper, but implementation remains uneven. A 2023 analysis noted that only about 40% of targeted schools had fully incorporated drug education into their curricula, pointing to organisational inefficiencies and a lack of standardisation. The demand and harm reduction arms, which complement each other, remain under-resourced compared with enforcement.

There is also a tension at the heart of the model. The policy leans heavily on a punitive, supply-focused approach inherited from its origins in the Ministry of Finance, even though substance use is increasingly understood as a health and social welfare issue. Experts have argued for reimagining the policy with a stronger public health perspective so that prevention and treatment receive the same weight as enforcement. Closing this gap is likely to define the next phase of drug policy reform.

Drug addiction is not simply a law-and-order problem. It damages health, breaks down families and pushes people into poverty and crime. That is why the NDPS framework sits squarely within the social welfare agenda, even though much of its machinery is built around enforcement. The policy attempts to balance two goals that often pull in different directions: protecting society from the harms of trafficking, and treating people with addiction as patients who need support rather than only as offenders.

The success of this balance depends on coordination. When the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the health ministry and the social justice ministry work in sync with states and NGOs, the framework functions as intended. When they work in silos, gaps appear that traffickers and addiction alike exploit. For students of public policy, the NDPS framework is a useful case study in how a single problem can require legal, medical, financial and social tools all at once.

What do you think? Should drug addiction be treated primarily as a criminal offence or as a public health concern, and where should the line between the two be drawn? If you were redesigning the policy, would you shift more resources from enforcement towards prevention and treatment, or keep the current balance?

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Table of Contents

The scale of the problem 🔗

From a legal vacuum to a comprehensive law 🔗

The role of the NDPS Act, 1985 🔗

The NDPS Policy: a guiding framework 🔗

Who implements the policy 🔗

The three-pronged strategy 🔗

Supply reduction 🔗

Demand reduction 🔗

Harm reduction 🔗

Turning policy into action on the ground 🔗

NAPDDR and Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan 🔗

International cooperation and alignment with global goals 🔗

Where the framework struggles 🔗

Why this matters for social welfare 🔗