Sri Lanka Police on surprise checks in schools for drugs | Popgen Tech

By Susitha Fernando

Colombo, December 20 (IANS): Sri Lanka will establish a Presidential Task Force to combat the use of narcotic drugs by school children. The Office of the President, the Ministry of Justice and Prisons, and the Ministry of Public Security joined together to create the Task Force to combat the rapid spread of toxic and dangerous drugs and to rehabilitate to those who are addicted.

“The Task Force will especially focus on taking swift action to save children from the drug menace,” said the Office of the President, which aims to identify, plan, and implement appropriate practical measures to prevent the use of declared dangerous and narcotic drugs.

After the alarming discovery that more than 40,000 school students are addicted to narcotics, the police and educational authorities began to search school buildings, bags and school buses every morning. The Police Narcotics Unit is conducting surprise checks using sniffer dogs across the country following the recent recovery of crystal methamphetamine, popularly known as “ice”, from a school canteen in – Western Province where schools are most affected, said the police.

According to the Narcotics Police (PNB), various drugs were introduced to school children by distributing sweets and toffees laced with drugs around the school and from investigations it emerged that children stole money and gathered in various places where they could use the a drug

The Minister of Education Susil Premajayantha last week announced that more than 80 school going children have been sent to rehabilitation due to drug use recently.

According to PNB records, almost 500,000 people are addicted to narcotic drugs and more than 75 percent of them are between the ages of 14 and 30 years.