The government has formed so far anti-narcotics committees in 24,299 schools as part of an intensified anti-drug campaign, enforcing an extra vigil on English medium schools and private universities, officials said on Thursday.
“We have constituted 24,299 anti-drug committees till January this year at schools, colleges and universities with an aim to make aware students about danger of drug abuse,” Narcotics Control Department’s (DNC) deputy director Rabiul Islam told BSS.
He added: “We laid an extra vigil on private universities and English medium schools as some students of the institutes have been engaged in taking different drugs especially the contraband Yaba due to its availability.”
The official said DNC held a number of discussions and seminars at different educational institutions across the country such as North South University throughout the last month as part of the campaign.
Islam official said DNC planned to form identical committees at every educational institution and bring them under a network to spearhead a concerted anti-drug campaign.
The government took the move in 2009 with first forming 5,779 committees when the students were getting increasingly inclined towards taking drugs and similar narcotic substances.
Head of each educational institution were made the chief of such five-member committees while physical or religious teacher were made member secretary of the committee.
Three other members of the committees are: a teachers’ representative, a guardian, and a student.
These committees usually hold their meetings once in the month’s end to discuss the darker sides of the abuse of drugs to keep them away from the menace.
Besides, each committee in collaboration with the respective district administration hold a broad-based discussion on the worst side of drugs and narcotics side by side with distributing anti-drug posters, leaflets, souvenirs, bulletins, brochures and booklets among the students.
Records suggest the drug addiction of one victimize individuals, families and communities with addicts getting engaged in petty theft to mugging and even in murders.
In some countries, drug related crime account for up to 90% of all crimes.
Asked if there was any statistics on drug addicts in schools, the DNC official answered in the negative but said their findings suggested students in bigger cities were more exposed to drug addictions.
Available studies say more than five million people are drug addicts in the country with 80 percent of them aging between 15 and 35 years and mostly being students.
