The Use of Cannabis in Pakistan

Cannabis: Drug addiction in Pakistan?

The use of cannabis has been legalized in Canada. What is the status of its use in Pakistan? According to experts and research, it is the most widely used drug in the country, despite severe penalties in law.
Tariq Mahmood, a Peshawar-based member of the Dost Welfare Foundation, an organization working to rehabilitate drug addicts in Pakistan, told the BBC Urdu Service that in his experience, Pakistan still has the highest number of drug addicts. Cannabis is used, but most children are under 18 years of age.

About 6,000 people have come to his organisation's center in Peshawar for rehabilitation in the past 24 months, he said. He said there were about 900 children between the ages of ten and eighteen, of whom 80 per cent were addicted to cannabis. Ninety percent of older people were addicted to heroin, he said.

Tariq Mahmood of the Dost Foundation said he was not in favor of legalizing cannabis in Pakistan. He said that the disadvantages are high and the benefits are low and the situation in Canada and Pakistan is very different.

He said that the highest number of drug addicts in Pakistan is in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and one of the reasons is its geographical proximity to Afghanistan.
According to a 2013 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 6.7 percent of Pakistanis in Pakistan were using drugs. According to the report, the number of cannabis users in Pakistan at that time was 3.6 percent or 4 million. According to some estimates, this number has increased.

The legal status of cannabis in PakistanNoor Alam Khan, a senior Supreme Court lawyer in Pakistan and an expert in drug law, told BBC Urdu that the Control of Narcotic Substances Act 1997 included strict provisions to control drug use. Under which a judge can carry the death penalty or at least fourteen years to life imprisonment for possession of more than one kilogram of drugs. He said that the punishment depends on the quantity and quality of the drug. In addition, fines can be imposed.

Advocate Noor Alam Khan said the minimum sentence for possession of more than 10kg of drugs is life imprisonment. He said bail was also made difficult in 1997.
He said that under this law, a court can only convict a police witness in the absence of a private witness.
He also said that the gift of this law is the burden of proving one's innocence.
However, he said that despite these strict laws, drug use could not be controlled. The reasons for this include not getting punishment for 'drug bars', people want to get rich overnight.
Tariq Mahmood of the Dost Foundation also said that government measures were in place but the number of drug users was increasing.

History of Drugs in Pakistan

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, drug use in Pakistan can be seen in three phases, one of which is 'traditional drugs', including opium, hashish, hashish and cannabis. According to the report, when they were banned under the Hudood Ordinance of 1979, the number of registered people using one opium in the country was one lakh. Then came heroin in the 1980's and spread rapidly among the country's male population. There is also a tendency for drug abuse in the urban population.

Pakistan and the global drug route

According to a UN report, Pakistan is on one of the busiest drug trafficking routes in the world. The report says that 40% of the heroin and hashish produced in Afghanistan passes through Pakistan and a large amount of it is used in Pakistan. The report cites a study that found that 160 tonnes of heroin entered Afghanistan from Afghanistan in 2009, of which 20 tonnes were used here. Similarly, in 2011, 1,300 tonnes of cannabis were illegally produced in Afghanistan, which, like heroin and other drugs, entered Pakistan.

The United Nations based its findings on information about drugs seized by Pakistani authorities.