Зеличенко Александр Леонидович : другие произведения.

Compassion and security

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   Compassion and security
  
   The war on drugs switches from repression to human rights recognition
  
   By Alexander Zelichenko*,
   TCA contributor
  
   TBILISI (TCA). The capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, recently hosted an
   International Conference "Science, Compassion and Security: Towards a
   Pragmatic National Drug Policy" where Kyrgyz representatives participated
   as conference experts. They, as well as advisers from Great Britain,
   Canada, the USA, Czechia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia, came to help
   Georgia develop a status-quo-sensitive narcopolicy by sharing their best
   national practices.
  
   About 24 thousand drug users have been registered officially in
   Georgia, while the off-record figure varies from 150,000 to 200,000.
   Specialists have voiced alarm at the drug and HIV epidemics springing from the
   addict's needle. The situation is similar to what we've gone through in
   Kyrgyzstan. In Georgia, however, the most popular substance is
   buprenorphine (buprenorphine hydrochloride) locally known as subutex and
   smuggled in from Europe (France, generally). As an antidote, the Anti-Subutex
   Fund was created, which has already won the reputation of being a tough
   hardliner. One fine morning, the city's "pits" (a local term for places
   where drugs are sold) bloomed with signs reading 'Here lives a subutex
   dealer'... Although this story wasn't officially confirmed, rumors are
   circulating that it was the Internal Ministry, the Fund's mastermind,
   pointing them out. The fund often hands out T-shirts sloganizing
   'Anything but subutex!' in an attempt to tone down the subutex pandemia.
  
   The fact that the conference was opened by Georgia's first lady marks
   the scale of challenges on its agenda. Participating along with state
   officials and parliamentarians were well-known Georgian human rights
   activists, clergymen, and NGO leaders. Economists talked about the damage
   caused to the Georgian economy by the drug use, having proved the
   conclusion drawn by their British colleagues that every pound invested in
   treatment saves the nation every three spent on the drug war.
  
   Separate sessions were devoted to IHRD programs, which had long been
   looked upon warily by Georgian officialdom. Finally, though hesitantly,
   the latter gave the green light to these programs after their
   effectiveness became a fact proved both locally and internationally. The IHRD
   activists said that imperfections in the law, the steamrollering and
   stigmatization, had driven local addicts into dens so deep that it took the
   project members two years to lure them back out with promises of help
   and support.
  
   The same scenario was taking place in Kyrgyzstan in 1997-98, when IHRD
   programs were first launched in Osh. Shunning criminal responsibility
   and public chastisement, drug users used to shrink away from help as if
   from hell. It wasn't until repressions gave way to a more reasonable
   and humane approach that the needle and syringe exchange programs (NEPs
   and SEPs) began bringing more success in Osh. God knows how we would
   otherwise have curbed HIV, having violent narco-aggression in the
   background. Indeed, dirty needles account for about 80 percent of all
   transmission cases. The achievements and buildups popularized at the conference
   will, hopefully, be taken aboard by Georgia.
  
   Curiously enough, assisting Georgian NGOs with the realization of
   prevention projects were police officers. The Anti-drug Bureau, for example,
   did not prevent volunteers working under the HIV/AIDS prevention
   projects from giving out syringes. Georgians found applicable the Kyrgyz
   version for maintaining interaction and harm reduction courses for
   policemen, notably a training program recently developed by the Internal
   Ministry's Academy. Moreover, they took interest in our pattern of HIV
   localization in correctional facilities. SEPs have been brought into Kyrgyz
   correctional facilities and have been running for more than two years.
   No additional HIV cases have been found in prisons during this period.
   Our Georgian colleagues can so far only dream about such an efficient
   mechanism for preventing the fatal disease. Meanwhile, even criminal big
   shots have started lobbying for SEPs, in fear of being contaminated.
   NGO members may now conduct educational activities in prisons. The walls
   of the largest penitentiary in the suburbs of Tbilisi are "tattooed"
   with safe injection schemes.
  
   Special attention was paid to legal issues of narcopolicy humanization.
   Having unanimously agreed that one should not be punished for mere drug
   use, the conference participants looked at the justice systems of
   Canada, Great Britain, Ukraine, and into the unified EU model.
  
   An analytical report presented by the lawyer of the Adilet Legal Aid
   Center Erik Iriskulbekov and devoted to Kyrgyz legislation on drugs and
   HIV/AIDS also received a warm welcome. Especially the study of a true
   case from 2003 when - thanks to lawyers - an addict, who had previously
   been convicted seven times and lastly arrested for a small dose of
   drugs, was proclaimed guiltless and released right away. This precedent, in
   Kyrgyzstan, was followed by dozens of similar cases.
  
   All anti-drug warriors should learn how to work within a legal
   framework. Speaking off the record, the Adilet lawyer recalled numerous
   examples of forged criminal cases where the names of policemen's relatives who
   had not witnessed an arrest were, nevertheless, cut-and-pasted from
   protocols to protocols.
  
   Mindful that in some countries drug use has been decriminalized, the
   Russian HR activist Lev Levinson pointed to the growing popularity of
   heroine fuelled by such benefits as free medical treatment and so called
   substitution therapy. And what about amphetamine and ecstasy users?
   Normally, they have no links to AIDS. Does it mean we should deny them
   medical help? Or should we send them to prison?
  
   Another subtle issue raised by Levinson is that, in certain countries,
   law-makers have resumed off-again on-again debates on criminal
   proceedings against someone to whom administrative sanctions had been applied
   before. It is necessary to understand that law enforcement officers
   don't peg drug dealers, traffickers, 'mules' (carriers) and 'crack house'
   hosts, as addicts. For instance, lifting a ban on drug use in Italy was
   actively and successfully lobbied by the police. As a result, the time
   that used to be wasted on chasing drug users can now be spent on
   "treating" real mafiosi, terrorists, and other powerful enemies of the
   republic.
  
   Developed in the mid-90s, the IHRD programs are now working in 20
   countries, most of which were faced with the need to backfit their national
   narcopolicies.
  
   Great Britain tackles the problem rather well. According to a
   conference speaker, as early as the 1990s, the AIDS outbreak made the British
   society and government realize that the epidemic was much more dangerous
   than even the drug epidemic. Hence, a smashing breakthrough in British
   narcopolicy and sizable budget funds (?500mln annually) paid out into
   addiction prevention programs.
  
   Czechia's first go of developing a narcopolicy was made in 1993. The
   country kept moving - step by step - away from jack-booting tactics,
   until it arrived at the decision to start IHRD programs, the only proved
   anti-HIV policy, as soon as possible. Today, although the anti-drug
   budget money still flows towards law enforcement agencies, as mush as 17
   percent goes to support drug-related health care.
  
   In Russia, under the Federal Program on Drug Use Prevention to be
   realized by 2009, only 12 percent of the 3bln-worth total program budget are
   intended for rehabilitation and treatment. In the rest of the CIS
   states, the pittances budgeted for these purposes are just a scratch on the
   surface. Unless the ratio becomes at least 1:3, where one third stands
   for medical and social package, experts believe any substantial changes
   in narcopolicy will remain unrealistic
  
   *Alexander Zelichenko is a colonel,
   Open Society's IHRD expert (New York),
   conference participant
  
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