President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has instructed officials to build a mechanism that draws parents directly into protecting children from drugs, arguing that strong parent-child relationships work better than legal measures alone, the Daily Mirror reported.
He gave the instruction at a meeting of the “A Nation United” National Steering Committee, set up to eradicate the drug menace, held at the Presidential Secretariat on Wednesday.
Parents should be educated directly on the seriousness of the threat and trained to identify and monitor changes in their children’s behaviour, the President said. He also called for a trusted figure to guide parents when a child is at risk of exposure, noting that families commonly turn to teachers or religious leaders, and directed officials to build a systematic programme to provide that guidance reliably rather than informally.
He separately called for measures to dismantle drug distribution networks to be strengthened further.
Forensic backlog and bail
The committee was told the Government Analyst’s Department has raised its daily output of forensic reports after facilities were expanded and efficiency improved. Around 8,000 drug-related forensic reports were completed during September alone, with Navy personnel assisting with data entry.
Officials said faster processing had a second effect: a significant number of suspects remanded on drug-related charges were able to obtain bail, easing prison overcrowding. Forensic certification is ordinarily what holds such cases at the remand stage, because the charge cannot be settled until the substance is analysed.
Legislative timetable
Dissanayake instructed officials to refer the new drug control Bill now before Parliament to the relevant committee in the first week of October, secure its approval, and have it passed by Parliament by the third week of October.
Context
The meeting is the second government statement on drug policy this week. The administration also restated that the 1818 drug tip-off hotline operates 24 hours a day. Wednesday’s directives shift the emphasis from enforcement and reporting channels towards demand-side prevention inside the household.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror does not name the new drug control Bill, describe what it changes in existing law, or say which parliamentary committee it is to be referred to. It does not say who will run the proposed parent-education programme, what it will cost, or when it is expected to start. The report gives no baseline for the 8,000 September forensic reports, so the scale of the improvement cannot be judged, and it does not say how many suspects obtained bail as a result.
This article is single-sourced. Ada Derana also filed on the meeting, but its site returns an access block to our fetchers and its report could not be dated or read.
