As part of the long overdue justice reform process that was set in hand by the Labour government 12 months ago, the highly-anticipated drug legislation review will be published in a White Paper before the summer recess.
It is thought that the review will see first-time offenders who are found in possession of drugs for personal use not having their cases processed, as now, through the criminal courts but sent instead before a new non-judicial body.
Justice Minister Owen Bonnici, in discussions with drug agencies and other stakeholders, is working towards introducing a new set of regulations which are more realistic and closely aligned with contemporary attitudes in society. He is seeking to reconcile two widely different approaches to drug law enforcement.
On one hand, Sedqa, the rehabilitation agency entrusted with drafting the national drug policy, supported by the formidable Justice Reform Commission under former European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello, had proposed the decriminalisation of soft drugs.
On the other, the National Commission on the Abuse of Drugs, Alcohol and other Dependencies had taken the more conservative view that decriminalisation should “under no circumstances” be considered but the new non-judicial body being proposed should instead aim “to reduce the negative impact that often resulted from a criminal conviction”.
The words of Mgr Victor Grech, the former director of Caritas, the Church’s arm that reaches out to drug addicts, should also be closely heeded. He had said: “We do not think that punishment and prison are the best measures for improving the behaviour of these young people, except in cases where the person would be a huge risk to society such as drug trafficking and organised crime.”
He called for the setting up of a specific ‘drug court’ and appealed for drug users not to be sent to prison. Under his proposal, a drug court would have at its disposal a multi-disciplinary team to examine carefully the degree of responsibility of someone suspected of a crime involving drugs and to provide for “intensive care according to that person’s needs”.
The thrust of this approach is clearly and sensibly directed at safeguarding the welfare of individuals and strives for a balance between the rights of a suspect and of society. It accords with the approach of those who would wish to see the decriminalisation of specific drug use, focusing instead on better treatment of drug users without the need to send them to prison.
It seems unarguable that the common point of departure should be that preventive education and rehabilitation offer better solutions to drug problems in society than incarceration.
Although some people will continue to believe that it is through tough punishment that drug addiction can be deterred, it seems reasonable to argue on the evidence adduced by Caritas and, on grounds of common sense, that an addiction which is intrinsically an illness is not cured by serving time in prison.
The more enlightened, such as the Global Commission on Drugs, argue that drug abusers can be weaned off their addiction through proper rehabilitation programmes. Few people who have worked with victims of drug abuse believe that, however unpleasant the conditions and however tough the regime, prison deters those who are addicted.
A properly structured programme of drug rehabilitation, based on the drug court concept or the new non-judicial body, would seem to offer the best way of protecting not only the public but also the addict him/herself.