The Lift Line
“Mere prohibition and criminalisation, as the experience of the last decade shows, can make matters worse.” (Editorial, The Indian Express, 24 October 2026)
Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam
In the news: on 24 October 2026, The Indian Express’s editorial “Bihar needs to talk about prohibition, addiction” argued that a decade of prohibition has not ended substance abuse in Bihar, which, it says, “has taken new forms and has reached alarming proportions”. It asks the State government to treat addiction as “the social and psychological disease” it is, not only as a matter for the police.
The editorial is unsigned, so it is the paper’s own view. Its numbers come from an investigation the paper has published; they are the paper’s findings, and this page attributes each one.
The topic sits on three syllabus lines at once. GS Paper 2: government policies and interventions in the health and social sectors, Directive Principles, and the division of subjects between the Centre and the States. GS Paper 1: social issues, including the place of women in the politics of the ban. It also suits an Essay on “the limits of law in changing behaviour”. For the enforcement side of drug policy, read this site’s reading of The Hindu’s editorial on Punjab’s drug trade and the NDPS Act.
The Crux in 60 Words
Bihar banned alcohol in 2016 partly to answer women’s concerns about addiction. Ten years on, The Indian Express argues, the ban has not ended substance abuse: its investigation finds narcotics use rising alongside an illegal liquor trade. Policing is not enough, it says; the Choudhary government must treat addiction as a social and psychological disease and take society along.
The Indian Express holds that prohibition is not the silver bullet it was made out to be, and that criminalisation without a social and health response can make matters worse.
- The ban had a plain political logic: Nitish Kumar had built support among women, and banning alcohol was part of addressing their concerns about addiction’s toll on families.
- An Indian Express investigation, cited by the editorial, finds cases under the NDPS Act, seizures of synthetic drugs and the numbers at Bihar’s few de-addiction centres all rising, with young men most at risk.
- Narcotics abuse is spreading alongside an illegal liquor market, while enforcing prohibition has meant arrests on a mass scale.
- The State has a Special Task Force on narcotics and has merged its narcotics bureau with the police prohibition wing, yet Bihar Police’s own Special Branch chief says police action alone will not suffice.
Prohibition answers a real demand from women who bore the cost of drinking at home, rests on a Directive Principle (Article 47) and falls in a State’s own field (State List Entry 8); Bihar has eased the law’s penalties rather than drop it, and drug traffickers still need firm policing.
Treat addiction as a social and psychological disease: expand de-addiction and treatment, separate users from traffickers as the NDPS Act’s 2001 reform intended, assess the law’s impact on courts and jails, and build a community effort backed by the State.
Background and Context
How Bihar went dry, and how the law has been softened since
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 31 March 2016 | The Bihar Excise (Amendment) Act, 2016 (Bihar Act 3 of 2016) is gazetted |
| 1 April 2016 | Prohibition on country liquor comes into force by notification |
| 5 April 2016 | A notification under Section 19(4) of the amended Excise Act imposes total prohibition on foreign liquor |
| 30 September 2016 | A Division Bench of the Patna High Court sets aside the 5 April notification |
| 7 October 2016 | The Supreme Court stays the High Court’s judgment |
| 2016 | A new law, the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016, takes over from the amended Excise Act later that year |
| 2018 | An amendment makes certain penalties less stringent and relaxes bail conditions |
| 2022 | A Supreme Court bench flags bail applications crowding the courts; on 30 March the Assembly passes an amendment Bill on bail for first-time offenders |
The 2016 Act states its purpose plainly: “to enforce, implement and promote complete Prohibition of liquor and intoxicants in the territory of the State of Bihar”. It prohibits the manufacture, storage, distribution, transport, possession, sale, purchase and consumption of any intoxicant or liquor. Section 19(4) of the amended Excise Act also let the State absolutely prohibit notified intoxicants “notwithstanding anything contained in this Act and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985”.
What the paper’s investigation reports
The editorial draws its case from figures for arrests under the NDPS Act, seizures of synthetic drugs and the numbers at Bihar’s “all-too-few de-addiction centres”. According to the Indian Express investigation, as the editorial reports it:
- 1,905 cases were registered under the NDPS Act in the first five months of 2026; in 2019 the number was 697.
- “Tablets” seized rose from 29,762 in 2022 to 9.29 lakh in the first five months of 2026. These range from opioids and sedatives to psychotropic drugs.
- Hard synthetic drugs such as heroin, brown sugar and newer varieties like “kota” follow a similar path, and the spread is also geographic.
- In the ten years since prohibition began, it has led to an average of 196 arrests a day.
On the State’s response, the editorial notes a Special Task Force on narcotics, and says the Prohibition and State Narcotics Control Bureau, set up in 2025, has been merged with the police’s prohibition wing. Kundan Krishnan, director general of Bihar Police’s Special Branch and Operations, told the paper that “mere police action will not suffice in the present situation” and that “only a community effort backed by the state government can contain the growing menace.”
The Analysis
1. The ban had a political logic, and a real grievance behind it. The editorial traces the law to women’s support for Nitish Kumar, built in his first two terms through schemes such as the Mukhyamantri Cycle Yojana, which gave girls and women “greater mobility and independence”. Addiction, it accepts, “takes a toll not merely on the addict but also on their family and the broader community”. The ban was “part of addressing the concerns of women voters”. So the editorial does not mock the motive; it questions the tool.
2. A ban can end legal supply without ending demand. “Its failures are well documented across countries and other Indian states,” the editorial says of prohibition. Official data show why the question is fair. In NFHS-5, whose Bihar fieldwork ran from July 2019 to February 2020, more than three years into the ban, 15.5 per cent of the State’s men aged 15 and above said they consume alcohol (urban 14.0, rural 15.8). When demand survives and legal sale stops, the trade moves to an illegal market, which the editorial says is now running alongside the drug trade.
3. Criminalisation has a cost that falls on the justice system. Over 45,000 FIRs were registered under the Act every year from 2018 to 2020, and more than 40,000 people were arrested each year. In 2022 a Supreme Court bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M.M. Sundresh observed that at one stage 16 judges of the Patna High Court were hearing bail matters, with prosecutions under the Act “a large part of it”, and asked the State what legislative impact assessment had been done on the law’s effect on the judicial infrastructure. Bihar itself has stepped back on penalties twice: the 2018 amendment “watered down certain provisions to relax the bail conditions”, and the Bill the Assembly passed in March 2022 provides that first-time offenders “will get bail from the duty magistrate after depositing a fine”. A State that keeps easing the punishment is conceding the editorial’s point about over-criminalisation, while keeping the ban.
4. Substitution: from liquor to narcotics (the editorial’s reading). The editorial’s central worry is that the problem “has taken new forms”. The investigation’s figures show NDPS cases and seizures of pills and synthetic drugs climbing in the ban’s second half. That is a serious signal. But notice what it is: two trends running together, which the editorial reads as a link. It does not, on its own, prove that prohibition caused the drug rise. For an answer, write “the rise in narcotics alongside prohibition”, not “because of prohibition”.
5. Policing has limits, and the drug law already knows it. The State has added a Special Task Force and merged its narcotics bureau with the prohibition wing, yet its senior officer says police action alone will not do. The NDPS Act draws the same line. Its 2001 reform aimed at a graded system in which “drug traffickers who traffic in significant quantities of drugs are punished with deterrent sentences, the addicts and those who commit less serious offences are sentenced to less severe punishment.” Its Section 37 makes every offence cognizable and, for offences under sections 19, 24 and 27A and for commercial-quantity cases, allows bail only after the Public Prosecutor has had a chance to oppose it and, if opposed, only if the court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing the accused is not guilty and not likely to offend on bail, and a June 2026 judgment of the Supreme Court held these twin conditions mandatory. The law is meant to be hardest on supply and gentlest on the user.
6. The treatment gap is the real bottleneck. The editorial speaks of a “rehabilitation system pushed to the brink”. National data, not Bihar’s own, show the scale of the gap. The survey run by NDDTC, AIIMS in 2018, whose report was submitted on 18 February 2019, found about 14.6 per cent of Indians aged 10 to 75 currently using alcohol (about 16 crore people), about 5.2 per cent (more than 5.7 crore) affected by harmful or dependent use, and “just about one in 38 people with alcohol dependence” reporting any treatment. Among opioids, heroin led current use at 1.14 per cent, ahead of pharmaceutical opioids (0.96) and opium (0.52).
7. A policy test for a new government. For Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, “the first to hold the office from the BJP”, as the editorial puts it, the growing use of narcotics is “both a policy and political challenge”. The ban was his predecessor’s signature measure and drew on women’s votes; reforming it risks looking like a retreat, while leaving it as it is risks the outcome the editorial describes. Its advice is to address “the social and psychological disease of addiction, taking society along with it”.
Data and Institutions Vault
Prelims-grade facts:
The Constitution:
- Article 47 (Part IV, Directive Principles): the State shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of intoxicating drinks and harmful drugs, except for medicinal use
- State List, Entry 8: intoxicating liquors (production, manufacture, possession, transport, purchase and sale)
- Concurrent List, Entry 19: drugs and poisons, subject to Entry 59 of the Union List on opium
Bihar’s prohibition:
- Bihar Excise (Amendment) Act, 2016 (Bihar Act 3 of 2016), gazetted 31 March 2016
- Country liquor banned from 1 April 2016; foreign liquor by a notification of 5 April 2016 under Section 19(4)
- Patna High Court set aside the 5 April notification on 30 September 2016; the Supreme Court stayed that judgment on 7 October 2016
- Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016: “to enforce, implement and promote complete Prohibition of liquor and intoxicants” in Bihar
- 2018 amendment: certain penalties made less stringent; bail conditions relaxed
- 30 March 2022: Assembly passed an amendment Bill giving first-time offenders bail from the duty magistrate on a fine
The NDPS Act:
- Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (Act 61 of 1985); amended in 1989, 2001, 2014 and 2021
- It consolidated and amended the law under the Opium Act, 1878 and the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1930
- 2001 reform: deterrent sentences for traffickers in significant quantities, less severe punishment for addicts
- Section 37: every NDPS offence is cognizable; bail for offences under sections 19, 24 and 27A or involving commercial quantity needs the Public Prosecutor heard first
- Twin conditions: reasonable grounds that the accused is not guilty and will not offend on bail; held mandatory by the Supreme Court (2 June 2026)
Data:
- NFHS-5 (2019-20), Bihar: 15.5% of men aged 15+ consume alcohol (urban 14.0%, rural 15.8%); women 0.4%
- National survey (NDDTC, AIIMS, 2018; report 18 February 2019): 14.6% of people aged 10-75 use alcohol, about 16 crore
- Same survey: 5.2% (over 5.7 crore) affected by harmful or dependent alcohol use; about 1 in 38 alcohol-dependent people treated
⚠️ Watch the trap: NDPS stands for Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. Article 47 is a Directive Principle, which Article 37 makes unenforceable in court, not a Fundamental Right. Liquor is on the State List, drugs and poisons on the Concurrent List. Bihar banned country liquor first; foreign liquor followed days later. The 2022 change was passed by the Assembly as a Bill on 30 March 2022.
The Debate
The case for the editorial’s line. A ban that leaves demand intact pushes trade underground and fills courts and jails. Bihar’s own record bears this out: tens of thousands of FIRs and arrests a year, bail benches crowded enough to draw the Supreme Court’s comment, and two rounds of softening penalties. NFHS-5 found drinking persisting among men more than three years into the ban. Meanwhile, by the paper’s figures, narcotics cases and pill seizures are climbing, and the State’s top Special Branch officer says policing cannot contain it alone.
The other side. Prohibition answered a demand that came from women, who bore the cost of drinking at home; that is why it was popular. It gives effect to a Directive Principle and is squarely within a State’s powers. Bihar has reformed the law’s penalties without abandoning the ban, which suggests a middle path exists. And the figures show narcotics rising alongside the ban; they do not by themselves show that the ban caused the rise, and trafficking still has to be fought with the police and the NDPS Act.
The balanced verdict. The editorial is right that criminalisation is not a cure, and the official record of arrests, bail and survey data supports that. Where it goes beyond the evidence is in the link between the liquor ban and the drug surge, which its figures suggest but do not prove. The stronger case for an answer is the one both sides can accept: keep enforcement for supply, and build treatment for users.
How to Think About This
Use the “supply, demand, substitute, burden, treat” lens for any prohibition or ban question (liquor, drugs, gambling, tobacco):
- Supply: what does the ban stop? (Legal sale of liquor in Bihar.)
- Demand: does the want go away? (NFHS-5: drinking among men persisted.)
- Substitute: where does unmet demand go? (An illegal liquor market; in the editorial’s reading, narcotics too.)
- Burden: who pays for enforcement? (Police, courts, jails, and the families of those arrested.)
- Treat: who helps the user? (De-addiction centres, which the editorial calls “all-too-few”.)
Then keep two habits. Separate the user from the supplier, as the NDPS Act’s own sentencing logic does. And separate the record (court orders, NFHS, the national survey) from the paper’s figures and its reading of cause and effect.
Diagram-in-Words
Bihar’s prohibition, and what the editorial says followed
Covers the ban’s aim, the editorial’s reading of what followed, the State’s response and the editorial’s prescription.
Read the figure from top to bottom: the ban’s aim, what the editorial says followed, the State’s response, and the editorial’s prescription. The middle band is the editorial’s reading of two trends, not a proven cause and effect.
Article 47 of the Constitution directs the State to endeavour to bring about prohibition, yet criminalising consumption has not ended addiction. With reference to Bihar's experience since 2016, examine the case for treating addiction as a public-health problem rather than only as a crime. (250 words)
Article 47, a Directive Principle, asks the State to endeavour to bring about prohibition of intoxicating drinks and harmful drugs except for medicinal purposes, and Entry 8 of the State List lets each State legislate on liquor. Bihar went furthest: it banned liquor in April 2016 and enacted the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016.
A decade on, the test is whether criminalising consumption has reduced addiction.
Gains. The ban answered women’s concerns about drinking’s toll on households and gave shape to a constitutional ideal.
Burden on justice. Over 45,000 FIRs were registered under the Act every year from 2018 to 2020 and more than 40,000 people were arrested each year; in 2022 a Supreme Court bench observed that at one stage 16 judges of the Patna High Court were hearing bail matters, with prosecutions under the Act a large part of them, and asked what legislative impact assessment had preceded the law.
Retreat on penalties. A 2018 amendment made certain penalties less stringent, and in March 2022 the Assembly passed a Bill to let first-time offenders get bail from the duty magistrate after paying a fine.
Persistence. NFHS-5 (2019-20) found that 15.5 per cent of Bihar’s men aged 15 and above consumed alcohol, more than three years into the ban.
Substitution risk. When legal supply ends, an illegal market grows and users may turn to other intoxicants, which the NDPS Act, 1985 governs; its 2001 reform sought deterrent sentences for traffickers and lighter ones for addicts.
Treatment gap. The 2018 national survey by NDDTC, AIIMS found about 5.2 per cent of Indians affected by harmful or dependent alcohol use, and only about one in 38 alcohol-dependent people reporting any treatment.
Prohibition by itself treats a health problem as a crime. A better balance keeps firm action against traffickers and illicit supply, but treats users as patients: more de-addiction and treatment capacity, family and community support, and periodic review of the law’s impact, so that the Directive Principle is pursued through public health rather than through prisons.
Interview Angle
"Bihar banned liquor in 2016 partly to answer women's concerns about addiction. As District Magistrate of a Bihar district where drug use is rising, what would you do beyond arrests and seizures?"
Takeaway Box
- Core idea: a ban can stop legal supply without curing addiction; treat traffickers as criminals and users as patients.
- Prelims hooks: Article 47 (DPSP) with Article 37; State List Entry 8; Concurrent List Entry 19; NDPS Act, 1985 (Act 61), Section 37 twin conditions.
- Ethics and Interview angle: State paternalism against personal liberty; protecting families without over-criminalising the poor.
- Probable question: “Discuss the constitutional basis of prohibition in India and assess its effectiveness as a public-health measure.” (GS2, 150 words)
Sources:
- “Bihar needs to talk about prohibition, addiction”, editorial, The Indian Express, 24 October 2026
- Supreme Court of India, Satvinder Singh @ Satvinder Singh Saluja v. State of Bihar, Criminal Appeal No. 951 of 2019, judgment of 1 July 2019
- Supreme Court of India, State of Punjab v. Balraj Singh @ Billa, 2026 INSC 618, 2 June 2026
- The Constitution of India (Articles 37 and 47; Seventh Schedule, List II Entry 8 and List III Entry 19)
- Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Act, 2014, Statement of Objects and Reasons
- PRS Legislative Research, brief on the Bihar prohibition law (2022)
- LiveLaw, 9 March 2022; Deccan Herald (PTI), 30 March 2022
- National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019-20, State Fact Sheet: Bihar
- PIB, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, 18 February 2019: national survey on the extent and pattern of substance use
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