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Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader and Jaffna District MP Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam has accused the Sri Lankan military of playing a central role in the spread of narcotics across the Tamil homeland, warning that drug addiction has been deliberately fostered.
Speaking in Parliament, Ponnambalam said that during the period when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) controlled large parts of the North-East, narcotics use among Tamils was “virtually nonexistent”.
“The LTTE treated the prevention of drug use as a serious social responsibility, and they succeeded,” he said. “Even in areas under government control at the time, drug use was minimal. The traffickers lived in fear.”
He contrasted this with the current situation, in which narcotics have become rampant across the North-East. Ponnambalam alleged that Sri Lankan military camps now act as safe havens for drug traffickers, while the Sri Lankan police turn a blind eye and refuse to register complaints against those involved.
If the Sri Lankan government genuinely cared for the welfare of the people, this problem, which is spreading like a malignant disease, could be resolved, he claimed.
Ponnambalam recalled that when former Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena announced a nationwide campaign to eradicate narcotics in 2015, the army failed to implement. Drug use, he added, began to take root in Jaffna after it fell under military occupation in 1995 and worsened dramatically after 2009.
He accused the Sri Lankan state of using narcotics as a weapon against the Tamil nation. “You spread drugs like a disease with the help of the Sri Lankan military, and now it has even reached the South,” he said.
Ponnambalam argued that power must rest with civilians, not the military. “Only then will those entrusted with it be held accountable to the citizens,” he said.
The parliamentarian also linked the decline in education and social conditions in the North to this growing crisis. He noted that before 2009, the Northern Province consistently ranked among the top five in national education results, even during wartime. Today it has fallen below eighth place, he said.
Even during the conflict, students continued their studies, Ponnambalam continued, stating that now youth are being deliberately drawn into drugs. But the MP also cautioned against criminalising drug users, stressing the need for a genuine public health and policy-based approach rather than a militarised one.
If the Sri Lankan government truly wishes to take constructive steps to address the narcotics problem, it must remove the Sri Lankan military from the North-East, he concluded.
Ponnambalam’s comments come amid mounting concern over the ongoing illicit drug abuse and trafficking across the militarised North-East, where Tamil civil society groups have long accused the Sri Lankan security forces of enabling and profiting from the narcotics trade as part of a broader system of social control.
