Drug policy should be based on human rights and freedoms – State Service

Дата: 27 April 2016
A+ A- Підписатися

The drug policy should be based on human rights and freedoms. The most important thing is to aim efforts at combating drug trafficking, not punishing drug addicts.

This was stated by Oleh Dzisyak, Acting Chairman of the State Service of Ukraine for Drug Control, the press service of the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center reports.

The global drug policy is being rebuilt by removing punitive and repressive methods, which were once directed against the drug addicts, and focusing the law enforcement on fight against the organized drug industry,” Dzisyak says.

According to him, Ukraine demonstrates positive results from implementation of harm reduction programs, i.e. substitution maintenance therapy. Such voluntary programs mean health stability for a patient and situation under control for the state.

Anna Dovbakh, the program director at the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network, notes that detained consumers of drugs are in most need for medical care and understanding. In such situations, the police should treat these people humanely. For this purpose, according to the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network director, the government should change the attitude to drug addicts.

Anton Basenko, the Public Health Alliance specialist, the patient of substitution maintenance therapy program, says that 8,500 people in Ukraine have returned from the underworld to the families thanks to this approach.

212,000 drug users were covered by harm reduction program just in past year. Over the years of introduction of such programs, the spread of HIV was halved among drug users and reduced from 41% to 19%,” Basenko said.

Substitution maintenance programs are provided only by non-governmental organizations and they are available only to drug users at large.

Поділитися:
Якщо ви знайшли помилку, виділіть її мишкою та натисніть Ctrl+Enter