IANS/New Delhi

“Sometimes I want to ask the youth who indulge in drugs that maybe you experience a different world when you take drugs. But have you ever asked where the money you buy your drugs with goes?” Modi said in his monthly radio address ‘Man Ki Baat’.

“Have you thought ... what if this money reaches terrorists and they buy arms using them? And using them, they kill our soldiers?

“Have your ever thought that maybe the bullet that has hit a soldier was bought from some percentage of the money you paid to buy your drugs?” Modi said, urging the youth to reject drugs.

“Have the courage to say ‘no’ (to drugs) and reject drugs. Tell your friends the same.”

The prime minister said that drug abuse brings “darkness, destruction and devastation” and suggested measures, including a special helpline and a social media campaign, to tackle the menace.

“I had said the last time that I was worried about the youth of the country. I am worried as some sons and daughters get stuck with drugs and the entire family is torn apart.

“It can destroy very good families. Drugs are something that can shatter anyone. This is a psycho-social medical problem and cannot be solved only through medical means.”

The prime minister said many people had come out of this habit and he urged celebrities and people connected with public life to create awareness.

“We can try and have a movement #DrugFreeIndia.”

Modi urged parents to study the changes happening in their children and try to save them.

The prime minister said he shared his thoughts on drug abuse with police officers at a recent conference and asked them to deliberate on the issue and think of a solution.

“I also suggested that we should start a toll-free helpline so that parents from across the country ... can share their problems.”

In Chandigarh, Congress leader Amarinder Singh said Modi’s appeal on drugs “should have been more action oriented than just a wish-list.”

“The prime minister must set the agenda and tell the nation what he plans to do and not just what should be done,” Singh said.

Welcoming the prime minister’s concern about the scourge of drugs the country is confronted with, the former Punjab chief minister said: “Who can feel the pain more than us in Punjab where an entire generation has been threatened.”

Punjab faces an acute problem of drug addiction with reports and surveys in recent years suggesting that nearly 70% of its population was affected by drugs.

“It is good that the issue has attracted the attention of the prime minister and I hope that the ‘Mann ki Baat’ will not end up in the heart only but will be taken to its logical conclusion,” Singh said.

He noted that he had been insisting on a National Drug Policy as different states have different laws regarding drugs, which makes peddling easy.

“In a state like Madhya Pradesh, opium is allowed to be grown, while in Rajasthan, it is allowed to be traded and a neighbouring state like Punjab becomes a fertile market,” he said.

“We have seen sons and daughters, brothers and sisters and their entire families getting devastated. In Amritsar, the area I represent in parliament, there is a village of widows with 90% of women losing their husbands to drugs,” Singh said.

He said that there were multiple aspects to the supply and availability of drugs.

“There were those coming from Pakistan and Afghanistan, those coming from states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and also produced locally for a cheap price,” he said.

“Narco-terrorism is only one of the aspects of the problem that the prime minister touched. The dimensions of this menace are threateningly more dangerous and devastating than even terrorism. While terrorists indulge in hit and run, the drugs ruin an entire generation constantly and continuously,” he added.