Md. Fakrul Islam Chowdhury of DOT :
President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs campaign which made a crackdown on drug users and dealers the focal point of his administration has so far killed 5,050 people, mostly at the hands of the police.
This is the official record of the Philippines Drug Enforcement Agency released on December 2018.
The official toll falls far short of estimates given by human rights groups which vary from 12,000 to 27,000. The chairman of the Philippine commission on human rights, Chito Gascon, said in December last year, that the death toll could be as high as 27,000.
While some countries have taken a violent and often brutal approach in tackling the problem of drugs, others countries have taken a more pragmatic and humane approach.
For example, Canada has introduced safe injection services and overdose prevention sites in Toronto in 2017. Though the first supervised injection services/ site was opened in Switzerland over 30 years ago.
There are now more than 90 supervised injection services around the world.
What is a supervised injection service (SIS)?
Supervised injection services and overdose prevention sites both offer supervised injection and medical care in case of an overdose. The City of Toronto describes supervised injection services as “health services that provide a hygienic environment” for people to inject drugs under the supervision of trained staff.
The supervised injection service sites offer a wide range of health/harm reduction services including:
Referrals to drug treatment, Housing and income support , Education on overdose prevention and intervention and Medical and counselling services.
People who use the service get education on safer injecting as well as overdose intervention and prevention services. They are also provided with sterile injection supplies. However, supervised injection sites and overdose prevention sites do not supply users with drugs. Anyone availing of the services brings pre-obtained drugs to the site acquired elsewhere.
The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care provides the operational funding for the sites in Ontario and Health Canada granted the legal approval. Supervised injection services and overdose prevention sites are legal in Canada and require an exemption under Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA). Exemptions are granted by the federal Minister of Health.
The supervised injection services are used mainly by people who have a long history of drug use and research has found that SIS does not cause people to start injecting drugs neither do they lead to relapse or stop people from quitting.
Police are not allowed to arrest people using safe injection services.
Supervised injection services have an exemption to Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The exemption means people who use the services are protected from being prosecuted for drug use within the site.
What are the benefits of safe injection services?
Researches have shown that safe injection services not only save lives, but also benefit the community in a number of ways:
With supervised injecting, the number of drug overdoses and deaths are reduced.
Provision of clean needles and other supplies helps reduce risk factors that lead to infectious diseases like hepatitis and HIV.
By reducing the spread of disease, safe injection services help reduce the burden on healthcare services and are therefore cost-effective.
Safe injection services connect people with other health and social services.
Safe injection services lead to an increase in the use of detox and drug treatment services.
Bangladesh also introduced in 2018 a new zero tolerance campaign against drugs dealers as well as against the users. While it can’t be overstated the importance of such a policy to reduce the social and individual costs, experiences in developed countries have provided us with some out of the box measures in dealing with the drugs crisis in a more humane, pragmatic and effective way. Perhaps, we should try to find ways to combine both approaches in our own War on Drugs.
The writer is Consulting Editor, Amader Notun Shomoy