Drug rehabilitation: Call to support and not to punish addicts |17 December 2016

The traditional trend has been to punish drug addicts with long prison terms and in certain countries even with the death penalty.

With drug addiction more and more considered as an illness and not a crime, now comes the call not to punish drug addicts but to support them as victims of the drugs trade.

In Seychelles, the call has been made by the HIV/Aids Support Organisation (Haso). The ‘Support Don’t Punish Campaign’ or ‘Donn sipor pa pini’ in Creole, along with its logo was officially launched on Thursday afternoon at the Seychelles Trading Company’s conference room by Haso chairperson Justin Freminot.

T-shirts with the logo were distributed among the invitees who were asked to wear them and help promote the campaign.

They were also called to post the logo’s poster on social media and display it in their offices or on car windows.

The launch ceremony was held in the presence of the chairperson of the Citizens’ Engagement Platform (Ceps) Jules Hoareau, its chief executive Marcel Rosalie, Haso members, representatives of the Drugs and Alcohol Council (Dac), officers from the Police and Seychelles People’s Defence Forces (SPDF) as well as drug victims on rehabilitation programmes.

Explaining the campaign, Dac representative Benjamin Vel established the link between drug abuse and HIV/Aids and Hepatitis C, with drug injunction as one of the main means of transmission. So we have to define our priority, he said.

“Do we help them or let them die”? he asked.

He added that as drug controlling methods are not working, legal and policy reforms are needed with law and policy makers having to take bold decisions.

He thus asked to punish traffickers rather than victims, going on to insist that small pushers are also victims and should not be punished.

In the same vein, he proposed that more go into prevention and rehabilitation rather than to the police.

He underlined the importance for us all to be part of and support the campaign, as he said, drug addiction concerns us all and can reach us along with its consequences.

Mr Freminot said that the campaign will help “right the wrongs that are present in our society, in particular to people who use drugs”.

He joined Mr Vel in adding that the 5000 drug users in Seychelles – of which 2000 inject drugs and some are still in primary school – need our help as they are our relatives, friends, work colleagues or neighbours. But the more important reason he stressed, is that if drug users are stigmatised and discriminated against, they go into hiding and thus become inaccessible to medical services and psychological support.

A hidden population he added also engages in behaviour that is less safe for them. Those are sharing soiled equipment, engaging in unsafe sexual practices and finding illegal means to access what they need.

“A hidden population continues to maintain its relationship with the girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, concubine, family. And when a hidden population has a high rate of HIV and Hepatitis C, it is not only their problem. Walls cannot hide us from this reality. The ‘Support Don’t Punish’ campaignis all about looking at the legal, social and cultural environments of each country, the drug control policies and improving access to services for drug users,” he said.

He argued that criminalising drugs and punitive measures have not brought the expected benefit of a drug-free society.  Rather, he said, it has filled the prison and rendered communities unlivable with police raids, open sale of drugs as well as 24-hour activities that disrupt the peace of neighbourhoods.

As alternatives to address drug use and drug users he asked for the following: Change the law to decriminalise sex work; ensure a more proactive view of sex work and drug use; no more harassment for sex workers; no more arrests and police harassment for amounts of drugs for own use; no more placing of young people in prison where they become worse criminals than when they went in; and no more turning away people who need help.

For this to be done, he called on all to support and not to punish.

While Mr Freminot welcomed amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act offering treatment to drug users while punishing the traffickers, he asked that we go further and ensure unfettered access to services from government agencies and the civil society.

This, he said, should be without fear of having the police arresting activists, social workers, health professionals and volunteers as they approach drug users to help them.