ISLAMABAD - The Anti Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) Saturday called upon the entire society to play its role in making the collective efforts successful through intensive mass awareness and prevention measures to save the new generation from becoming drug addicts. The youth should focus on their studies in universities and colleges, keep an eye on their surroundings and inform ANF force in case of observing any suspicious activity, Director Enforcement ANF Brigadier Rashid said while talking to PTV News. An anti-narcotics unit has also been established to help crackdown on drug peddlers, he said, adding, there was need for creating awareness among youth against the use of drugs that were now easily accessible to prepubescent children. Around 66 percent of young population was the wealth of any nation and can play a significant part in the reduction of the menace currently faced by the nation, he added.

  He further appealed to the parents, teachers and scholars to keep a strict check on the activities of youngster to ensure a bright, secure and narcotics-free future for them.

  Member Provincial Narcotics Control Committee, Akmal Owais Pirzada believed that Pakistan’s goal to become a drug-free society can be achieved through creating awareness at the grassroots level against the deadly addiction.  

The ANF through advocacy walks and awareness seminars is striving hard to eliminate drugs to achieve the set goal of a “drug-free society” besides vigorously executing its globally assigned tasks with utmost dedication and determination, he said and added that youth was Pakistan’s greatest asset, which constituted 66 percent of the population. They are our future and we have to protect them from the harms of drug addiction, he said and added that the ANF was playing a leading role in mass awareness and community participation programmes to educate the people against drug abuse.

  “We are constantly putting our efforts at the national and international level,” he mentioned.

 He stressed that the parents and guardians should be educated about the warning signs and risks associated with drug abuse, enabling them to provide support and guidance to their children.