Hyderabad high: How LSD is just a biscuit away
The drug menace is particularly close to home. So close that you need to now suspect anyone, including your child, even when he or she is merely eating a biscuit. Because according to the Hyderabad Police, the latest modus operandi of traffickers involves popular drug LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) being packaged in the form of biscuits.
Since drug addicts taking LSD from blots, which are smaller than the size of a postage stamp, are prone to suspicion, the biscuit route seems to be the latest innovation in the psychedelic drug market. All that the peddler needs to do is to put one drop - the size of an eye drop - on a biscuit.
Experts say it gets absorbed in the biscuit within no time. Each biscuit costs Rs 1,500 to 2,000, and for an LSD user every bite gives a high. The police have seized four LSD biscuits so far.
Limba Reddy, DCP (task force) in Hyderabad police, who led the team that busted the racket after arresting six persons, including two Nigerians, says consuming a biscuit is enough to give a high for up to 12 hours. "The person can work or dance, without sleeping for that long, he won't even feel tired," says Reddy.
This is the second drug racket that has been unearthed in Hyderabad within a month. The first one was cracked by the prohibition and excise department when it arrested 12 peddlers who were found to have over 1,000 students, film stars and professionals as part of their customer base.
The department seized 800 blots, 35 gm of MDMA (methylenedioxy- methamphetamine), referred to as ecstasy, with a total haul valued at over Rs 25 lakh.
What was worrying was that close to 25 schools and an equal number of colleges were found to have students who were addicted to LSD, molecule and ecstasy.
Each blot of LSD costs Rs 3,000 while molecule is more expensive at Rs 6,000. Which is why the police are now worried that an LSD biscuit, which comes cheaper, could prove to be the easiest and least expensive way to peddle drugs, without making anyone suspicious. Add to that the fact that no city in India has an exclusive drug rehabilitation centre.
While the call data records of the six peddlers arrested on Wednesday (July 19) are being perused to see if students were on their client list, the police do not intend to name and shame any school. Only informal counselling will be given to the students and parents to ensure that they are kept away from LSD abuse in any form.
The excise department's efforts to sensitise school managements to the drug menace came to naught despite evidence emerging that the drugs are supplied in the immediate vicinity of the educational institutions. The schools took offence to their names being circulated over WhatsApp forwards. With the education department also expressing its displeasure, a meeting with the schools that was scheduled to be held on July 14, was cancelled.
The department has now shifted its attention to the film industry, where it has issued notices to over a dozen prominent names. The first of them, celebrated director Puri Jagannadh, presented himself before a special investigation team on Wednesday to explain his phone conversations with Calvin Masceranhas, one of the arrested drug peddlers.
The excise department sleuths also found messages written in code language with references to "Shiva" and "Zen", that they believe are a way to place an order with the peddlers. The SIT wants to find out if the film stars are only consumers or they are peddling the drugs further to other members in Tollywood. Different sections of the law could be slapped if they are found to be sub-peddling the drugs.
But the danger with the crackdown on the film stars is that the attention gets diverted by the glamour of the big screen names. With the excise department having found out that orders can be placed over WhatsApp as well, for any young addict, drugs are just a phone text away.
Which is why the police want parents to watch out because even an innocuous WhatsApp text saying "I feel like having a biscuit", may have a hidden message about an "Udta Hyderabad".