The Lower House of Parliament passed a controversial amendment to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law
last week, leading to mixed reactions among the public and subject matter
experts.
اضافة اعلان
According to the latest
amendment, abusing, smuggling, importing, exporting, purchasing, delivering,
transporting, producing, manufacturing, storing, or cultivating narcotics and
psychotropic substances, or plants from which narcotics or psychotropic
substances are produced for the purpose of abuse will no longer be entered into
the criminal record of offenders if it is their first offence.
For the purposes of this
article, I will solely focus on whether a first-time drug offence should
warrant a criminal record. In the last few days, many experts, who mostly come
from security backgrounds, have publicly opposed this stance, concerned that not
entering
first-time drug offences into people’s criminal records will further
encourage them to abuse drugs.
In the last few years,
residents of many areas in Amman and Jordan at large, where drug abuse became
an alarming practice, launched campaigns, and called on authorities to implement
stricter measures and save their young people from addiction. Official figures
show that the number of drug-related cases rose from 2,041 in 2005 to 20,055
cases in 2020.
On the other hand,
proponents of the amendment argue that it aims to give people a chance to lead
normal lives and reintegrate into society. When reflecting on both arguments, it
becomes obvious that opponents are mostly preoccupied with imposing harsher
penalties in a bid to discourage people from abusing drugs or even committing
any crime. While their approach wants to “prevent” the crime, it pays little
attention to other rehabilitative measures should this crime actually occur.
A recent study conducted by
the Ministry of Justice focused on repeat offenders and presented alarming
indicators. When asked why they had returned to criminal behavior, 50.4 percent
of inmates at Jordan’s reform and rehabilitation centers said there had been no
“work opportunities in the labor market for them”, 30.4 percent said that being
incarcerated covered their “living expenses” for free, while 47.1 percent said
they had felt “rejected by the society” and suffered from “social stigma” after
their release.
If we still want to treat drug
abusers as “criminals”, we need to ensure that they break out of the cycle
after their release by offering them a chance to lead normal decent lives, and
the latest amendment may actually be a step in the right direction.
We could still go even
further and learn from other countries that treated them as people who needed
treatment rather than criminals who had to be prosecuted. In the late 1990s,
Portugal had the highest rate of drug-related AIDS cases in the European Union,
and the criminalization of drug use was increasingly viewed as part of the
problem.
In 2001, Portugal became the first country to decriminalize
drug use, and offer the professional
support people needed to overcome their addiction. Although opponents of this
policy expected it to be counterproductive and lead to a greater problem,
figures on the ground showed a different result in less than 10 years. By 2009,
the country witnessed a drop in
HIV infections and overdoses as a result of
this approach.
When asked about the secret
of their success, João Goulão, one of the architects of the drugs policy, told the BBC:
“We are not a very rich country, but our professional responses are based on
human respect and that makes all the difference, you know?”
Perhaps we, in Jordan, have
another lesson to learn.
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