In yet another decisive move to eliminate drug addiction from the state amidst the ongoing anti-drugs campaign ‘Yudh Nashian Virudh’ launched by the Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Balbir Singh on Tuesday unveiled a five-pillar action plan to during a high-level consultative and collaborative meeting with Non-Government Organisations (NGOs).
This strategy marks a paradigm shift in the state’s approach to combating drug abuse through Supply Reduction, Demand Reduction, Harm Reduction and Stigma Reduction.Declaring an end to Punjab’s decades-old "political-police-criminal nexus”, Dr Singh asserted, ”The missing piece—political will—is now in place. With CM Bhagwant Singh Mann’s leadership and your grassroots power, we will create a ‘Rangla Punjab’.”
Over 30 NGOs including Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Society for the Promotion of Youth & Masses (SPYM), Ananya Birla Foundation, Kalgidhar Trust Baru Sahib, Hans Foundation, Sun Foundation, etc. from across the country and experts from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi, PGI Chandigarh, Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) participated in the meeting, which took place at Punjab Bhawan here.
Emphasising the government’s unwavering commitment to breaking the supply-demand cycle of drugs while ensuring compassionate rehabilitation for affected individuals, the Health Minister stressed on the need to prevent upcoming generation— kids and students— to fall prey to drug menace, while, focusing on ensuring treatment those those, who are already got addicted.
He said that as part of harm-reduction, Punjab Government is soon going to introduce dose of liquid methadone in all the Medical colleges, which has proven very effective way to bring drug addicts into mainstream.Terming treatment of drug addicts as a challenging part, Dr Balbir Singh said that to cope up with this, doctors will put the drug addict oral drugs including BPNx (buprenorphine+Naloxone) or liquid methadone dose or any other method to stop him from using injectable drugs.
“After de-addiction treatment, we will move the patient to rehabilitation centre and provide him skill development course to bring him into the mainstream,” he said, while adding that they will also rope in employment generation department to provide the patient a good job to avert the chances of relapse.
The Minister also solicited support of NGOs to amplify efforts in relapse prevention and stigma reduction, stressing, “Addiction is a disease, not a crime. We must approach victims with empathy and equip them with skills for dignified reintegration.” He also proposed partnerships with religious organisations to expand rehab centres and community support groups.
Dr Balbir Singh also stressed on the need to establish a data intelligence unit for better synergy and intelligence sharing between police and health department, which will help in ascertaining prevalence of drugs in particular areas to make treatment strategies accordingly.
The different sessions during the meeting also explored other preventive interventions including Peer Leadership Initiatives and Model De-addiction centres, etc. He exhorted all the NGOs to come forward to make Punjab a drug-free state to realise the vision of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann of ‘Rangla Punjab’.
Principal Secretary Health and Family Welfare Kumar Rahul, ADGP Nilabh Kishore, MD NHM Ghanshyam Thori, MD PHSC Amit Talwar, DIG ANTF Sanjeev Rampal, AIG ANTF Ashwini Gotyal, Director Health and Family Welfare Dr Hitinder Kaur, AD (Mental Health) Dr Sandeep Bhola, Chairman homeopathy Council Dr TP Singh, Governance fellows— Sujeet Kishan, Aryan Sahi, Anshu Gupta, Srijita Chakraborty and Neha Choudhary, representatives of various NGOs, were also present in the meeting.