Speaking at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA’s) weekly briefing on Wednesday, official spokesperson for the ministry Randhir Jaiswal expressed the body’s willingness to deepen collaboration with the United States of America in the fight against narcotics.
Responding to a query about areas of future collaboration, the MEA spokesperson said the fight against narcotics was a “very good” area of cooperation, which could see further strengthening in the future. “Operational cooperation between India and the US in the area of counter-narcotics has ‘surged’ in the past several years. These operations have further resulted in the dismantling of major trans-national networks,” he added.
1,09,318 kg of drugs seized between 2020 and 2025
MEA’s statement to deepen collaboration comes at a time when there’s been multiple reports on increased consumption and trafficking of synthetic drugs and creation of trans-national networks. As per official data, NCB registered 116 major cases and seized a total of 109,318 kg of narcotic drugs between 2020 and May 2025.
Furthermore, as per a report released by the Narcotics Control Bureau earlier this year in February, trafficking of synthetic drugs such as ATS, MDMA has seen nearly a six-fold increase since 2019.
In 2024, 11,994 kg of synthetic drugs were seized as against 1,890 kg in 2019. NCB attributes the sharp rise to be primarily driven by high profitability and increase in market demand for these substances.
Jaiswal on pre-existing cooperation
“The cooperation has been given a further push with the launch of the India-US Counternarcotics Working Group in 2020,” he said. The CNWG meets annually; its fifth meeting was held in New Delhi on October 23–24, 2024, expanding collaboration across three pillars: illicit-drug production prevention, precursor-chemical control, and strengthening a public-health & enforcement partnership.
“Following the fifth meeting which took place last year in October, both sides adopted several measures to strengthen their fight against common challenges. The preparation for the sixth meeting is underway. We have a strong mechanism of sharing information between the US and India, and these have resulted in key seizures and arrests,” Jaiswal was heard saying at the weekly briefing.
Policy experts believe the MEA’s move to deepen ties comes at a timely note as India aims to treat narcotics as a public-health and security challenge, requiring international cooperation on prevention, treatment, and halting precursor import/export.
