Why in news?

Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed the 10th Apex-Level Meeting of the Narco-Coordination Centre (NCORD) at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.

At the meeting, organised by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), he released two key documents: the Vision Document on Drug Control (2026-2029) and the NCB Annual Report 2025.

Together, they set out a time-bound national strategy and map the changing nature of the drug threat facing India.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• The Vision Document on Drug Control (2026-2029)
• NCB Annual Report 2025: The Scale of the Threat

The Vision Document on Drug Control (2026-2029)

• This document is a strategic roadmap targeting demand and supply reduction, as well as rehabilitation.
• The roadmap rests on a simple three-part foundation — "detect, disrupt and destroy."
• Core Shift: Dismantling Entire Networks
  • The core shift in approach is from chasing individual carriers to dismantling entire networks.
  • Enforcement will now target suppliers, financiers, handlers, facilitators and the organised syndicates behind them.
  • A mission-mode campaign aims to identify and dismantle 100 major interstate and transnational drug cartels through intelligence-led investigations and coordinated operations.
• Whole-of-Government Approach
  • The strategy is built around a whole-of-government model.
  • More than 40 Ministries, central agencies, State governments, district administrations, educational institutions, civil society bodies and ordinary citizens are to work under a single national framework.
• Key Specific Commitments
  • Legal reform: The Department of Revenue will amend the NDPS Act and Rules to close loopholes and address regulatory gaps. States have been asked to send suggestions. The amendment also promises a more reformative approach towards drug users and addicts.
  • Speedy justice: The MHA is working to set up exclusive NDPS courts for fast convictions in major cases.
  • Following the money: Financial investigation will be mandatory in major drug cases. There will be greater use of the PITNDPS Act (Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988) to attach illicit assets and strike at the financial base of trafficking networks.
  • Global reach: States have been urged to pursue traffickers hiding abroad through Red Corner Notices with CBI's help.
  • Technology: The plan calls for advanced surveillance, anti-drone systems, AI-enabled profiling and container scanning across land, sea and air routes.
  • Synthetic drugs: Special focus on methamphetamine, mephedrone and emerging synthetic drugs, with tighter precursor controls. Chemical and pharmaceutical industries are to adopt voluntary compliance and flag suspicious transactions.

NCB Annual Report 2025: The Scale of the Threat

• NCB Annual Report 2025 was released during the 10th Apex-Level Meeting of the Narco-Coordination Centre (NCORD) in New Delhi.
• The report records an all-time high of over 1.48 lakh cases and seizures of more than 1,200 tonnes of narcotics and psychotropic substances.
• The seizures range from plant-based drugs to synthetic substances, diverted pharmaceuticals and precursor chemicals — a sign of how complex the threat has become.
• A Shifting Global Supply: Myanmar Overtakes Afghanistan
  • The single biggest change is in where India's opium now comes from. Myanmar has overtaken Afghanistan as the leading source of illicit opium.
  • The reason is twofold: the Taliban's 2022 ban cut Afghan poppy cultivation sharply, while Myanmar's cultivation expanded amid conflict and economic collapse.
  • Its Golden Triangle region — largely controlled by ethnic armed groups in Shan State — has become a poly-drug hub, producing both opiates and methamphetamine (Yaba tablets).
• The Eastern Front: The Manipur and Mizoram Corridors
  • The northeastern States of Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland face the sharpest exposure.
  • The Free Movement Regime (FMR) and porous, unfenced stretches along the India-Myanmar border have turned these States from peripheral transit zones into active staging grounds for distribution into the Indian heartland.
  • Two corridors are highlighted:
    • Manipur corridor — through which National Highway 102 passes — is the most direct entry point and the primary land route for both heroin and methamphetamine tablets.
    • Champhai corridor in Mizoram, near Myanmar's Chin State, routes drugs towards Silchar (Assam's Barak Valley) via Aizawl.
  • Crucially, the report links this trade not just to addiction but to arms smuggling and the financing of insurgent and terror groups — making it a direct internal security concern.
• The Western Front: Drones over Punjab
  • On India's western border, the Afghan pipeline has not disappeared despite the Taliban crackdown reducing production by 93% from its peak — an estimated 13,200 tonnes of pre-ban stockpiles continue to feed trafficking routes.
  • The most striking trend here is drone-based smuggling from across the Pakistan border, which has risen five-fold in five years and hits Punjab hardest.
  • The growth in drone incidents shows the rising operational maturity of these networks:
    • 3 (2021) → 35 (2022) → 28 (2023) → 178 (2024) → 305 (2025) — roughly a 100-fold rise in five years.
  • Beyond drones, the South Asian arm of the Afghan trade also enters through the land frontier in Punjab and Rajasthan and via the maritime route along the Gujarat and Maharashtra coasts, using fishing vessels and small craft that slip below standard surveillance.
• Digital Trafficking: Telegram and Encrypted Apps
  • The report flags encrypted messaging apps — Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal — as major trafficking channels, with Telegram emerging as a key platform for drug advertising.
  • Why this is harder to police than the darknet: these apps need no special access and work on any smartphone, lowering the entry barrier.
  • Enforcement is difficult because of jurisdictional hurdles in getting platforms to cooperate, auto-deletion of messages, use of multiple accounts and layered communication, and cryptocurrency payments that protect anonymity.
• Emerging Threats to Watch
  • The report singles out two threats needing urgent attention:
    • Nitazenes — a class of synthetic opioids said to be up to 500 times more potent than heroin.
    • The deepening link between drug trafficking and organised violence across transit economies.
  • India is also exposed to a wider global shift marked by ultra-potent synthetic opioids and record cocaine output.