Why in the News
Bihar’s liquor ban, enforced since 2016 with about 3.16 crore litres seized and 7.15 lakh arrests, has been followed by a fast-growing market in narcotics. Cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, India’s main anti-drug law, already exceed the whole of 2022 in just five months of 2026.
Why did a liquor ban create a market for drugs?
- The ban: Bihar imposed complete prohibition to curb alcoholism and its social and economic harm. Police seized 21.26 lakh litres of liquor and made 75,225 arrests in the first year.
- Price gap: Black-market whisky costs about twice its price elsewhere. A small packet of adulterated brown sugar costs far less and keeps a user intoxicated longer, so some users switch.
- Covid tipping point: In the Covid lockdown the legal liquor market disappeared and demand did not, so ganja and afeem (opium) spread in rural areas. Workers returning from other States brought contacts and knowledge of synthetic drugs.
- The takeaway: Policing one intoxicant left demand intact, so users moved to cheaper and stronger ones.
How far has the drug market grown?
- Cases: NDPS cases reached 1,905 in the first five months of 2026, against 697 in 2019.
- Ganja and pills: Ganja seizures nearly doubled in three years, and tablets seized rose about 30-fold in four years, including counterfeit pills made from chemical powders.
- Changing users: The head of psychiatry at a Patna medical institute reports patients shifting from cannabis to semi-synthetic and synthetic (lab-made) drugs, with many dependent on heroin.
- Spreading districts: Patna was among the top five districts for NDPS cases every year from 2016 to 2025, and Samastipur, Muzaffarpur and Vaishali are new hotspots.
How do the drugs reach Bihar?
- Kota: Kota is a raw form of heroin, inhaled with cigarettes. It is sold in soap-box containers, each split into hundreds of tiny vials. The name comes from “quota”, a local word for a dose.
- Route: Ready-made boxes come from Myanmar into the Northeast and onward by the Silchar (Assam) route. The “Death Triangle” of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand has shifted from opium and heroin towards synthetics such as “Yaba” methamphetamine tablets.
- Couriers: Couriers collect boxes in the Northeast and return by train, and women hide them in stitched compartments in clothes. About 80% of those arrested in kota cases link to Vaishali.
- Legal workarounds: The NDPS Act punishes by quantity: for ganja, 1 kg is small and 20 kg commercial. Traffickers split consignments among carriers to stay below the limits, because the quantity class also affects bail.
Who is at risk, and is the response keeping up?
- Juveniles: Only 11 juveniles were detained under the NDPS Act from 2016 to 2023, against 50 in 2024 alone. Police fear cheap drugs are fuelling juvenile crime.
- Treatment gap: Beneficiaries of Union-supported de-addiction centres rose nearly 20-fold in two years, yet such centres run in under a third of Bihar’s districts.
- State bureau: The Prohibition and State Narcotics Control Bureau, set up in September 2025, merged the Anti Narcotics Task Force with the police prohibition wing.
- Union campaign: The Union Home Ministry’s Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, a drug-free India campaign, has 2029 as its target year.
Challenges
- Hard-to-detect carriage: Pills and vials fit in a pocket, and scanners and sniffer dogs are of limited use, so detection depends on advance intelligence.
- Small players caught: Enforcement mostly catches couriers and users, not kingpins, because the chain is a loose network rather than one gang.
- Slow trials: Delayed trials, low conviction rates and weak forensic capacity reduce deterrence.
Way Forward
- Community participation: The State should back community programmes that build resistance to drugs, since police action alone will not suffice.
- District coverage: The Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment should extend supported de-addiction centres to every district.
- Special courts and labs: States should set up special NDPS courts and forensic labs for quicker trials.
Conclusion
Prohibition has changed what Bihar’s users consume more than whether they consume. The test ahead is whether treatment capacity and community programmes expand as fast as enforcement.
Key numbers
- Black-market prices: Whisky (750 ml) costs about Rs 1,500 in Bihar against Rs 650-750 elsewhere; a brown sugar packet costs Rs 300-500.
- Seizures: Ganja rose from 16,691.81 kg (2022) to 31,915.29 kg (2025); tablets from 29,762 (2022) to 9.29 lakh (January to May 2026).
- De-addiction beneficiaries: 1,487 (2022-23) to 29,429 (2024-25), per a Union reply of 10 March 2026.
Matching Previous Year Question
“[2018, GS3, 15 marks] India’s proximity to two of the world’s biggest illicit opium-growing states has enhanced her internal security concerns. Explain the linkages between drug trafficking and other illicit activities such as gunrunning, money laundering and human trafficking. What counter-measures should be taken to prevent the same?”
