Pvt sector may make narcotics

The Centre is planning to allow the private sector to enter the lucrative legal narcotics business to meet the growing demand for opium alkaloids from the domestic pharmaceutical industry.

At present, licit opium alkaloids -- base compounds for a wide range of pain-killers of which a major share is used for cancer patients -- are sourced from the government-owned Alkaloid Works at Ghazipur and Government Opium at Neemuch.

Officials, however, said the units were finding it hard the meet the demand from the rapidly expanding domestic pharmaceutical industry. The factories produce about 15 tonnes each of the alkaloids, including codeine, morphine and noscapine, annually, in addition to exporting over 500 tonnes of opium, valued at Rs 220 crore (Rs 2.20 billion), to countries like the United States, France, Germany and Japan for industrial use.

The officials said they had already received queries from private players seeking to enter the business. Given the sensitive nature of the business, the government will have to formulate detailed guidelines to ensure that private sector players subject themselves to the same level of security checks, as the government factories do.

In 2002-03, the two factories earned about Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) from the production of opium alkaloids. The units source their entire raw materials from opium cultivated on government-licensed lands in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. These states produce about a thousand tonnes of the crop per year.

The government has begun the work of amending the Rules under the National Drug and Psychotropic Substances Act of 1985, which allows for the production of the compounds by the two government factories.

To ensure that opium does not get diverted for the production of illicit drugs, there are three separate authorities for supervising the cultivation of opium, manufacture of opiates and the fight against drug menace.

All of them come under the administrative control of the Narcotics Control Division. From last fiscal, the Narcotics Control Bureau, which does the work of seizure of illicit opium and narcotic drugs, has been taken over by the home ministry. The other activities are still under the department of revenue.

Opium for masses

• The government-owned factories are finding it hard the meet the demand from the rapidly expanding domestic pharmaceutical industry.
• The government has received queries from private players seeking to enter the business.
• The Centre will have to formulate detailed guidelines to ensure that private sector players subject themselves to stringent security checks.
• In 2002-03, the two government factories earned about Rs 100 crore from the production of opium alkaloids.