For beginners, cough syrup and morphine-based prescription drugs are easily available without prescription from chemists shops in Phases I, III-B-2, IV and VII. Phensidril goes for Rs 50 per bottle according to sources. Ambwala Chowk is the place to buy bhang. The intoxicant is available in the form of panjiri, pakora, ghota (liquid) and sukha (a powder filled into cigarettes). Depending on quality, the stuff starts at Rs 5 and goes up to Rs 20.

Effeemchis make a beeline for the Phase XI jhuggi colony where their drug sells for Rs 150 per tola.

For those who have moved on to the harder stuff, smack is easily available to the knowledgeable; it sells Rs 200-300 per gram in the township. Half-burned foils and papers littering secluded corners of parks and the floors of derelict structures, such as abandoned tube-well pump-houses, testify to the pervasiveness of the habit. Drug addicts and dealers are said to frequent the park adjacent to the Punjabi University Extension Library in Phase VII, the ground adjacent to Phase VI booth market, and a shop in the Phase VIII, booth market.

According to sources a husband-and-wife team residing in Palsora Colony which falls in UT opposite Phase VI of the township is a major supplier. They have said to have been in the trade for the past three years, occasionally going underground when police pressure increases. "Business" is conducted by phone and their cellular phone number is common knowledge ... for that matter it issaid to be in the knowledge of the SAS Nagar Police. This "shop" offers free home delivery; a delivery site is agreed upon and payment is made on delivery. The couriers, who are themselves drug addicts, carry only the purchased quantity of drug. The couriers are paid in drug for their own daily consumption as well as a percentage of the profit.

Police sources say that some foreign students are also involved in the drug trade. Their modus operandi is to loiter in the markets in the morning and wait for addicts to approach them. A deal is made and some two hours later buyer and seller meet at a designated spot for the transaction. Police describe them as cunning and elusive: "They come to recognise every policeman; they carry the drug in sealed packets hidden under their tongues; if they spot one of us, they swallow it."

SAS Nagar Superintendent of Police B.S Randhawa claims that police are "closing in" on the dealers and mentions three foreign nationals, two of whom were recently convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. "Our men recently seized smack worth Rs 1.5 crore," he says. As for the addicts, he says: "One thinks of labourers and unemployed youth as `typical addicts' but some cases of school children taking drugs have also come to light."