EDITORIAL

There are various reasons why persons may choose to abuse drugs. Some suffer from anxiety, depression or mental illnesses and use drugs as a means to escape and ease their daily suffering. There may be others who use drugs out of curiosity. Some in high stress jobs see drugs as a means of escape and drugs become their coping mechanism. Some persons become ill and become unintentionally hooked on prescription drugs. People also use drugs to help them cover painful memories. There are also those that use drugs just to simply fit in. It’s safe to say that people use drugs to either potentiate pleasure or relieve the unpleasant. It appears as if the underlying reason why persons use illegal drugs and abuse legal drugs is due to an underlying social problem. If we were to agree with this baseline view then why are we using a hammer to crack the nut and treating drug abuse as an issue for the criminal justice system and not a social problem?

 

There are some who would immediately dismiss the forgoing as nonsense. However, does the evidence show that fines and imprisonment have solved the drug problem? No, for those who are incarcerated even continue to use drugs in prison and after their release. For years the war on drugs have been for the account of the judiciary and for years the war has waged on. Maybe its time to stop arresting and incarcerating our young people and start arresting the core of the problem.

 

This war is not one that is waged only on the shores of the Caribbean but it’s a world-wide problem for everyone. The US has a growing heroin and prescription opioid epidemic and President Obama committed earlier this year to devoting resources to prevention and treatment rather than to the “war on drugs”. Interestingly enough it is not as huge a problem for Portugal. What has made Portugal so different? Interestingly enough they fought fire with fire and took a bold step 16 years ago when they decriminalised all drugs for personal use from marijuana to heroin. Now I am not suggesting that we take a leap of faith and do the same but we can stand to learn a bit from their story and how they tackled this problem. 

 

The reason why Portugal took such a radical stance was because they were losing the war on drugs. By the late 1990s roughly one per cent of Portugal’s population were drug users. That was approximately 100 000 persons.

Today that number is roughly half, with most of them in treatment programmes. In Portugal drug trafficking is still a criminal offence and the country has still kept within the confines of the UN’s drug convention system that inform drug laws but the approach is a more social one. Drug possession remains an administrative violation, punishable by penalties such as fines or community service. Portugal instituted regional panels called ‘Commissions for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction’ and these panels are made up of legal, health and social work professionals. Persons who are dependent on drugs are encouraged to seek treatment. Treatment is not mandated, the aim is for persons to enter treatment voluntarily. However if an addict refuses treatment, they are required to check in regularly with their general practitioner to ensure that this link is maintained with the treatment system.

 

Maybe we can learn a few things from the Portugal model as it relates to possession of drugs for personal use. Statistics have shown that drug use is not directly related to a countries drug laws but the ebb and flow is largely dependent on broader social, cultural or economic trends Perhaps we need to reform our judicial system and deal with the drug problem on a more social level. Our aim should be to help and provide abusers with life tools and not just simply to incarcerate.