Drugs, Pakistani youth and Gulf futures

Last month, Sindh police arrested a 19-year-old Karachi student caught delivering synthetic drugs to classmates. His payment was pocket change; the real cost was his future. In another case, a laborer bound for his first Gulf job was duped into carrying narcotics, only to land in a foreign prison as his family’s hopes collapsed.

These arrests make headlines, but the masterminds behind the trade rarely face justice. For every seizure or street peddler caught, the profiteers remain untouched, the everyday story of this silent epidemic.

These are not isolated incidents; they are windows into a larger crisis. Pakistan’s drug problem cannot be measured in seizures or arrests. It is about lives derailed, families broken and communities hollowed out. From our classrooms to Dubai’s departure lounges, narcotics are carving a path of destruction while those at the top continue to thrive.

The Sindh crackdown has gone beyond headlines. Around schools and colleges, dozens of suspects have been rounded up, dens dismantled, and gangs placed under watch. Police have seized hashish, heroin, and a rising wave of synthetic drugs that fit in a pocket but can burn through a generation.

What sets these operations apart is the gangs’ evolving playbook. No longer confined to street corners, deals now move through encrypted apps, social media and even food delivery riders embedding the menace into the rhythm of urban life.

Crucially, Pakistan must engage Gulf partners not just in intelligence but in shared solutions: curbing demand, regulating labor flows, and supporting reintegration.

Syed Kaleem Imam

This local picture mirrors a global surge: 316 million people used drugs in 2023, a 20 percent rise in a decade. The Gulf is struggling too: the UAE logged nearly 10,000 drug offenses in 2024, while Saudi Arabia reports thousands injecting opioids. Conflict has worsened addiction across the Middle East, fueling synthetics like Captagon. The regional addiction treatment market, now worth over $824 million, shows the scale of the crisis. 

Pakistan faces its own storm: 7.6 million users, including 860,000 heroin addicts, and around 1,200 opioid-related deaths annually. It is caught between Afghan supply routes and Gulf migrant corridors. The stakes are dire: addiction is not only a youth or health issue but a threat to remittances, reputation and regional stability.

And the stakes? Nothing less than Pakistan’s future. For young people, addiction means education aborted, health wrecked, opportunity lost. For families, it means despair, stigma and financial ruin. For society, it means rising crime, money laundering and extremist financing. If narcotics are seen as flowing from our shores, Gulf migration channels could tighten and with them, the remittances that keep our economy afloat.

Geography makes Pakistan doubly vulnerable. Recent data show that drug trafficking in the region has surged, with Afghanistan’s narcotics production reaching record levels and synthetic drug flows increasing sharply. With Afghanistan on its border, the country sits astride one of the world’s busiest narcotics corridors. 
At the same time, Gulf demand and Pakistan’s labor migration intersect in dangerous ways. Routes that sustain livelihoods can morph into trafficking pipelines. Too often, unsuspecting migrants are turned into couriers, while women coerced or stigmatized become hidden victims of this epidemic.

Having served as Federal Secretary for Narcotics Control, I have seen the gaps up close. Too often, the dragnet catches only the small fish, students lured by peer pressure, workers cornered by poverty while the real profiteers stay safely in the shadows. Everyone knows the cartels, the crime syndicates and the narco-terror pipelines that bankroll them, yet bringing down their masterminds remains an enigma. Until the system finds the courage to go after them, we are only cutting leaves while the roots keep spreading. 

The myths surrounding narcotics worsen the problem. The first: that arrests alone will solve it. They won’t. Crackdowns without prevention, awareness and rehabilitation simply create space for the next gang. The second: that every trafficker is irredeemable. Many are ordinary young people trapped by manipulation or despair. Treating them as hardened criminals only entrenches the cycle. What they need is a way back through counselling, rehabilitation, and reintegration.

Future trends are sobering. Digital platforms, dark web markets, and cryptocurrency payments are reshaping trafficking. Synthetic drugs will spread because they are cheaper, easier to produce, and harder to detect. Migration and pilgrimage routes will remain vulnerable. And if Gulf states come to view Pakistan as a source country, remittance flows, the backbone of our economy will hang in the balance.

This is why the Sindh crackdown matters. It is more than a police action; it is a chance to reset strategy. Enforcement must be paired with prevention, community networks, school awareness, rehabilitation centers, and migrant safeguards. Crucially, Pakistan must engage Gulf partners not just in intelligence but in shared solutions: curbing demand, regulating labor flows, and supporting reintegration.

Because this crisis is not abstract. It is about real students slipping from classrooms into gangs, real laborers leaving for jobs but ending up in jails, real families whose silence hides addiction. Policing can disrupt, but only a whole-of-society response, law enforcement, educators, parents, health-workers, policymakers and regional allies can break the cycle.

If left unchecked, narcotics will corrode Pakistan’s youth, damage its global standing, and choke its economic lifelines. But seized wisely, this moment could turn operations into a blueprint for a Pakistan-Gulf strategy against drugs. Fighting narcotics is not just about crime control, it is about saving futures.

– The writer is former federal secretary/IGP- PhD in Politics and IR-teaching Law and Philosophy at Universities. He tweets@Kaleemimam. Email:[email protected]: fb@syedkaleemimam