The Bengaluru police on Thursday seized over a ton of marijuana, which was stored in an underground space at a goat farm in Kalaburagi. When large amounts of drugs are seized, one of the questions that arises is: How do the police dispose of these drugs?
Until 2018, the Bengaluru police were burning drugs in an open space near the respective police stations after obtaining a court order. However, burning huge amounts of narcotic drugs is against the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. Keeping this in mind, the police finally formed a committee which contains Karnataka State Pollution Control Board officials and the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime-1) as the nodal officer to oversee environment-friendly disposal of narcotic drugs.
In 2015, the Department of Revenue under the Union Ministry of Finance had issued an order to all state governments that drugs seized in any case must be disposed of immediately. The order was issued to avoid misuse of drugs. "There have been many instances where small quantities of drugs have gone missing from places where they were stored. Hence, once the drugs are seized and samples are sent for testing to the forensic lab, we have to destroy it," a senior police official said.
In Bengaluru, seized drugs are kept in the corner room in a structure located between the old and new buildings at the Police Commissionerate's office. Once the drugs are seized, photographic and videographic evidence of the seizures are collected. The evidence is submitted to a magistrate, who orders the disposal of these drugs. "We can't destroy drugs without a court order and even the 2015 government order requires a magistrate's approval," the official said.
The 2015 order also mandated that all state governments establish a Drug Disposal Committee to ensure that the process of disposal is in compliance with the Pollution Control Board's norms. The committee must contain an officer with the rank of Superintendent of Police, the Joint Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise and Joint Director of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence along with PCB officials.
However, drugs can be disposed only if the total amount of drugs in possession weighs a certain prescribed amount, police officers say.
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"In 2018, with the help of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, we identified a factory in Magadi, where drugs are disposed of in incinerators. These are boilers with temperatures of 1000 degrees and the drugs are disposed of safely. The NDPS Act allows us to auction synthetic drugs to drug companies if they can be recycled but we have not done that due to fear of misuse," a senior officer, who was formerly the Police Commissioner of Bengaluru said.
However, if the drugs are of smaller quantities and are not synthetic ones, the police burn it in an open space close to the jurisdictional station. "If it is ganja or hashish or hash oil, which weigh 100 gm or 200 gm, then it is burned in an empty plot. Generally it is done late in the night when people are not around. Smaller quantities of synthetic drugs are stored and once there is enough to incinerate, it is disposed of in a timely manner," the officer said.