HEC wants to do drug tests at universities in Pakistan

Pakistan’s university students are likely to get tested for drugs on campus, as the Higher Education Commission has demanded the federal government to form a policy and give funds to stop the use of drugs.

It was revealed during a meeting of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Science and Technology on Thursday that more than 76 million Pakistanis are drugs addict, out of this, more of them are university students.

“University students are increasingly getting attracted towards ice (methamphetamine) and other harmful drugs,” said committee chairman Mushtaq Ghani. “The government should devise a policy to stop this,” he said.

The HEC briefed the committee about the issuance of guidelines for random drug screenings that will help in making the campuses drug and smoke-free.

“A policy would be needed to initiate random drug screening for which more human resource as well as testing labs will be required,” said an HEC official.

With our present resources we can’t conduct drug screening tests at all universities, he added.

The committee has, therefore, asked the government to issue Rs 21 billion for the HEC.

The HEC told the Standing Committee that performing random drug tests, using peer pressure, singing contracts with NGOs and finding the source of drug trafficking would eliminate drugs from their origin.

It was also decided that the Anti-Narcotics Force will be called in the meeting to discuss their thoughts on the matter.