A prison term is not the solution for drug addicts – they would benefit more from being offered counselling and carrying out community work, two former addicts told Justice Minister Owen Bonnici.

“Prison does not help a drug addict recover. You just end up mixing with other drug users and talking about the same thing constantly,” Wendy Busuttil explained.

Dr Bonnici yesterday visited the home of the couple, Ms Busuttil and Kenneth Caruana, who offered the minister their view on what needed to be changed.

“This reform has been long overdue,” Mr Caruana, 34, said.

“Abroad, they have a drug court system in place which is very effective. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have such a system in Malta.

“Here you’re thrust before a magistrate, who delivers a long speech in a language that you can’t even understand.

“It’s useless sending to jail a person who is used to constantly giving in to the drug habit. He won’t stop making use of drugs that way.”

A drug addict needed rehabilitation, he said. Community work was a more useful punishment than merely whiling away the time in a prison cell, stunted by a growing sense of frustration and anger.

Ms Busuttil, 38, added that society often did not give drug addicts a second chance.

“I used to work as a clerk in hospital. When people got to know that I used to abuse drugs, they were very distant.”

Mr Caruana first starting experimenting with marijuana when he was 14. He then progressed to harder drugs, including cocaine and heroin, which he would inject.

We didn’t want our son to go through what we did

Ms Busuttil started abusing drugs when she was 19.

“If I’d known what I was getting into, I would have stayed miles away,” Mr Caruana said. “But I was young and ignorant.”

Ms Busuttil spoke of the excruciating process of kicking the habit, which is punctured by countless false starts.

The couple have now been clean for four years, since Ms Busuttil became pregnant with their son.

“That was the turning point. We didn’t want our son to go through what we did.

“We couldn’t keep living the way we were. Our son will have everything we did not,” she said in a determined voice.

Mr Caruana added that greater education was needed in schools. He was willing to visit a number of schools to speak about the horrifying effects and consequences of coming into contact with drugs.