President Maithripala Sirisena today said it is essential that Sri Lanka’s politicians completely distance themselves from illegal narcotics. 

“I would like to clearly emphasize that as a government we will instigate every possible legal action against any politicians involved in illegal drug rackets or if any involvement is uncovered later, irrespective of their party and position,” he said.

The President was addressing an event in Ja-Ela, after launching an island-wide drug prevention programme. A National Drug Prevention month was declared from today (July 09) to August 08, under the direction of President Sirisena.

He added that information regarding the long-standing connection between officials of two important departments and the flow of illegal drugs into the country has been reported through the State Intelligence Service (SIS) and other channels.

“We know that the security forces, police and other agencies have taken complete responsibility to act on this, however it has been reported that officials of two department responsible for the foods and other goods entering into the country have a long-stinging link with the flow of illegal drugs into the country.”

The President stated simply educating the public is insufficient to eradicate the drug menace from the country though the national drug prevention movement, and that the government intends to enforce the proper implementation of the law, formulate new laws and implement the law irrespective of post and positions.

He stated that the government faces various challenges in the implementation of such endeavors. Sirisena stated that the government.

Giving an example to this, he said that they had initially intended to close all liquor shops in the country for a period of three days in order to educate the masses on the programme, however they had to reduce it to just one day amidst objections from officials in charge of government revenue.

“This is the actual situation. On the matter of state income and when attempting to prepare the budget of the Treasury, we cannot do without liquor shops in the country,” he said.       

He stated that a day has to come when the income from liquor shops can be removed to strengthen the treasury. The President stated that his development goal is to completely remove the income from liquor shop from the Treasury budget by the year 2020.