HYDERABAD: A loophole in laws and their odourless state are helping peddlers flood Telangana ‘paan’ shops with ‘ganja chocolates’, dubbed ‘bhang golis’ by state excise officials. However, the excise department officials said they will deal with the sale and consumption of ‘bhang golis’ as it is banned in the state.
A series of raids and seizure of ‘ganja chocolates’ in the city and elsewhere has rattled law-enforcing agencies and exposed the widespread abuse of the contraband.
Peddlers and smugglers have found a way to circumvent excise laws and bring packaged ‘bhang golis’ or balls of cannabis leaf paste from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to Hyderabad. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act exempts the leaf of the cannabis plant from prohibited substances, but the state has banned it through the Telangana Excise Act.
“It is hard to detect these packets as they are easy to conceal in other FMCG products and smuggled across the border. They also cannot be detected using canines as they do not have an odour,” a police officer said.
However, the latest crackdown by the excise officials has forced shopkeepers to stop stocking ‘bhang golis’ in their shops. “We only procure them for Holi and Mahashivratri,” an owner of a paan shop in Begum Bazar said.
In the northern states, the manufacture of these ‘golis’ is common, and they are even sold on online marketplaces. Samarth Kumar, who hosts a website that sells ‘bhang golis’, said, “We procure these ‘golis’ mostly from Indore through suppliers, and sell them not just on our website, but also on major e-commerce sites. But we cannot sell pan-India due to state-specific restrictions.” Kumar also claimed both his company and their suppliers have licences and permits from the Union AYUSH ministry.
The ambiguity in the law and mislabelling of the product has added to the confusion surrounding ‘bhang golis’. Despite being colloquially termed as ‘ganja chocolates’, these ‘golis’ neither contain any ganja nor chocolate. The varying legal status of cannabis has also made way for players to make inroads into Telangana and sell the contraband. Prohibition and excise department director VB Kamalasan Reddy emphasised the state’s strict stance against cannabis.
“It is a part of culture in northern states to consume this substance, and there are some court orders which state that the NDPS Act does not cover the leaf of the plant, but we have clear instructions from the CM to fully eradicate the presence of ganja in Telangana,” he said. Stressing on dangers of the drug, Reddy said, “Children can get hooked to the substance easily as it has high concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a psychoactive substance.”
