By Imlisanen Jamir
India’s approach to drug addiction has long been guided by a single instinct: control. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act was framed to punish, deter, and police. Treatment entered the picture later, and only at the margins. The result is a system where rehabilitation exists, but is neither central nor accessible, and where those who need help most often encounter fear before care.
A recent study by researchers from Nagaland University proposes a Digital Rehabilitation Law that integrates artificial intelligence, telemedicine, and mobile health technologies into addiction treatment. The proposal is not remarkable because it mentions new technology. It matters because it challenges an old assumption: that drug dependence is primarily a criminal problem rather than a public health one.
India’s rehabilitation infrastructure remains thin, urban-centric, and heavily stigmatized. For many users, especially in rural and hill regions, treatment centres are distant, understaffed, or socially unsafe. Families hesitate to seek help because contact with the system often begins with exposure to law enforcement. In such conditions, relapse is not failure; it is predictable.
Digital rehabilitation tools promise continuity of care without the barriers of geography and visibility. Tele-counselling, remote monitoring, and structured follow-ups can reach people who would never walk into a centre marked “de-addiction.” But technology alone does not change systems. Without legal recognition, digital rehabilitation remains an add-on, tolerated but not trusted, operating in the shadow of a criminal statute.
The Nagaland University study argues that rehabilitation must be treated as a core pillar of drug policy, not as a corrective after punishment. This is a necessary correction. A system that first arrests and later offers treatment is not therapeutic. It is coercive. When addiction is treated as moral failure or criminal intent, the law stops people from seeking help and then blames them for not recovering.
There is also a deeper risk. As artificial intelligence enters health care, it brings new forms of power. Algorithms that predict relapse or track behaviour can help patients, but they can also become tools of surveillance if placed within a policing framework. Without clear safeguards on consent, privacy, and accountability, digital rehabilitation could reproduce the same harms in a more efficient form.
Reframing addiction as a public health issue does not weaken the law. It strengthens it. A system that prioritises treatment reduces harm, lowers repeat offences, and protects communities better than punishment alone. Countries that have shifted in this direction did not abandon enforcement; they limited its reach.
The question, then, is not whether India can afford to rethink its drug policy. It is whether it can afford not to. Rehabilitation delayed is rehabilitation denied. And a law that treats illness as crime will always fail at both.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
