A policy paper on the handling of drug users is to be issued soon by the Social Solidarity Ministry through the Foundation for Social Welfare Services, Minister Michael Farrugia said this morning.

He said that while attention would be given to prevention and education, the policy would be more "aggressive" in tackling aftercare.

The minister was speaking during a consultation seminar on the drug reform White Paper 'Raise the Bar', launched on July 7.

Dr Farrugia said families had to be prepared to handle and accept rehabilitated abusers back home and employers to take them back. The policy, he said, would aim to complement the ongoing drug reform. It would also seek to assess the type of rehabilitation being offered.

The White Paper proposes that first-time drug users are brought before a Justice Commission which would be able to hand down warnings and administrative fines.

Repeat offenders would be sent to a social board made of probation officers, retired judges, psychologists, social workers and police officers.

The board would lay down strict conditions that would be legally obligatory to follow - ranging from community service to routine urine tests. Violating the conditions would be a criminal offence.

Those caught smoking cannabis would be fined or given a warning, irrespective of how many times they were caught.

Justice Minister Owen Bonnici stressed the proposals sought to fight trafficking while offering support to users to kick the habit by emphasising rehabilitation, among other things.

Dr Farrugia said the proposed reform of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services would seek to make Sedqa more focused on alcohol abuse.

The law, he said, needed to ensure that synthetic drugs were listed as illegal.

On medicinal cannabis, he said one must look into whether this would be an option for some medical cases.

Sedqa’s George Grech stressed the need for a national plan on alcohol abuse.

He said the national alcohol policy was still on the shelf and it was "embarrassing".

"I know there is resistance to this but we have enormous problems," he said.

He cautioned that today's cannabis was stronger than that available some years ago with the percentage of THC going up from three to 20 per cent.

He spoke about the importance of assessments to understand how long a person had been abusing drugs and whether there were underlying problems.

Madame Justice Edwina Grima, who used to preside over drug cases, said magistrates and judges did not have the necessary tools to tackle such cases.

"At the end of the day the problem ends up in front of us," she said, adding that there was need for better links with probation officers and social workers to guide them on what an individual needed before judgment was handed down. 

The White Paper did not tackle cases of young traffickers who sold drugs to sustain their habit. Also, some drug addicts were in jail for other crimes such as fraud and theft, so the issue extended beyond the drug court.

There was the need for a tool that allowed a court to hand down alternative punishments in cases of small traffickers. Currently, the minimum was a six-month jail term.

The law also needed to broaden the concept of trafficking by sharing. At the moment, only those sharing at the same time and in the same place were deemed to be cases of trafficking by sharing.

But there were cases of young people who were caught after they bought drugs they intended to share with friends, and because they were not caught using the drugs at the same time with friends, they had to be jailed.

Another problem was handling minors - there were no structures in place. A teenager in Gozo, Madame Justice Grima said, could not be sent home because of problems there and could not be sent to a rehabilitation centre since he did not have drug problem.

He ended up being sent to the Gozo short-stay mental health ward until he was taken in by his grandparents.

Speaking about drugs in jail, she said people caught smuggling drugs to inmates were sometimes scared of the person in jail and did so because they were threatened. But the law imposed imprisonment.

 

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