Marijuana now sourced from outside TN

CHENNAI: Although Tamil Nadu authorities, through the combined efforts of the narcotics bureau, police and forest department, managed to do away with the cultivation of ganja in the hills of Theni, Madurai and Coimbatore districts, supply to the market has not stopped because sellers have turned northwards to get the product.With abundant water supply, cheap labour and protection from ‘extremists’, the basin of River Sileru in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Orissa are ideal for ganja cultivation. Tamil Nadu’s drug ‘lords’ have shifted operations to these states and have started leasing land and contract farming. The present change in cultivation of ganja has also led to changes in the transportation of the goods to the market. Earlier, ganja cultivators sent their yield in gunny bags through trusted individuals, to be distributed through known peddlers. But now, it is shipped in cartons and taken to designated points through a better networking system, which often pulls the wool over the eyes of agencies tasked to take on drug smugglers.