A miner injects heroin at a jade mine in
Hpakant township in Kachin state. (Photo: Htet Khaung Linn/Myanmar Now)
YANGON
(Myanmar Now) - Several young men were standing near the entrance of
Thingangyun Hospital in central Yangon on a recent July morning, waiting
impatiently for a fellow drug addict to exit the facility.
They had
just received their daily dosage of methadone, but one man was not coming out.
After a few minutes, they concluded he must have failed the mandatory illegal
drugs test and got detained. The group quickly left.
“One of
the guys was arrested by police at the hospital,” an addict named Soe Maung
said later. “Recently, a girl was arrested in the same hospital while getting
methadone… she tried to run away but a policeman caught her by the neck.”
Like the
others, Soe Maung, 28, is taking methadone to wean himself off heroin and fight
its withdrawal symptoms. He is also a contact person for the Burnet Institute’s
HIV Mitigation programme for drug-injecting users and he helps Yangon’s opiate
addicts enter methadone therapy.
Drug
users who register their addiction with police and health authorities can avoid
criminal punishment from Myanmar laws, which set tough prison sentences for
narcotics use, possession and sale. They can enter mandatory methadone
maintenance therapy at 46 hospitals across Myanmar, including Thingangyun
Hospital, to suppress withdrawal symptoms as they give up illegal drugs.
Health
experts, representatives of drug users, and some politicians say methadone
therapy, and other so-called harm reduction strategies for drug users, should
be expanded to bring Myanmar’s rampant drug abuse problems under control.
They say
the government should also change laws that penalise recovering addicts who
test positive for illegal drugs, or punish those who fail to attend methadone
therapy and regular police registration.
They
warn, however, that the NLD government’s approach so far has only been
punitive, as the Ministry of Home Affairs launched a nationwide drugs and crime
crackdown that arrested many addicts, but did little to help them.
The
ministry recently said it wants more money for its crackdown, while some MPs
have called for tougher actions against drugs and crime.
GOVERNMENT
CRACKDOWN NETS MOSTLY ADDICTS
Soe Maung
said the NLD’s approach had raised fears among Yangon’s addicts, while police
were more quick to arrest recovering users who failed the conditions of the
methadone therapy programme.
“More
addicts who are taking methadone have been arrested during the first 100-days
plan of the new government,” he said.
Okkar
Min, an Upper House NLD lawmaker from Tanintharyi Region, urged his government
to abandon this repressive approach and introduce genuine reforms.
“The
government needs to lay down a policy to open more rehab centres for drug
addicts. If it keeps arresting all drug users, as it has been doing over the
past few months, then they will fill up the prisons but the problem won’t be
solved,” he said.
According
to the Ministry of Home Affairs, police arrested 4,761 people in 3,197
drug-related cases between April 1 and July 31. Several hundred kilos of opium
and heroin, and millions of methamphetamine pills were seized, but arrests of
those running the drug rings remain rare.
“When I
asked police officers about those arrested in the drugs crackdown they were
just small dealers or users,” Okkar Min said. It would be more effective, he
added, to fight government corruption and increase public education campaigns
that warn youths about narcotics.
PLANS TO
REFORM LAWS, EXPAND REHAB
Myanmar
has long been a major producer of opium, its derivate heroin and methamphetamine,
much of which originates from and passes through its poor, ethnic borderlands,
where the government remains weak. Drug abuse in these areas and in Myanmar’s
major cities has reportedly worsened sharply in recent years, prompting calls
for a new approach to drug addiction.
The Drug
Policy Advocacy Group, a network of health experts and NGOs, has worked with
health officials on expanding harm reduction and rehabilitation programs, while
it cooperated with law enforcement officials to develop plans for amending drug
laws.
Dr. Hla
Htay, senior technical manager at the Burnet Institute and a member of the
group, said the government’s capacity to provide methadone therapy is hindered
by current laws and limited due to a lack of resources and facilities.
He said
there are now about 7,000 registered addicts seeking rehabilitation, but
Thingangyun Hospital, for example, can only provide methadone for 400 addicts
on a daily basis.
An opiate detoxification centre at Yangon
Mental Health Hospital in East Dagon Township, on the city’s outskirts, can
treat only 50 patients at a time for a two-week treatment.
According
to some estimates there are 81,000 drug users in Myanmar.
Dr. Hla Htay
said methadone supplies at the Yangon Mental Health Hospital were often not
sufficient for the detoxification treatment. “We cannot give addicts the amount
of methadone they asked for, and every project needs good facilities and
skilled staff,” he said. “But we have plans to expand this project”
The
Thingangyun Hospital methadone service is limited to 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., another
practical hindrance for addicts, who might relapse if they miss the methadone’s
clinic opening hours, according to Win Min, a Burnet Institute staffer who
counsels addicts.
Dr. Hla
Htay said drug reform advocates have worked together with police officers of
the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) to draft amendments to the
1993 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Law, which would remove
penalties for drug users.
Police
Colonel Myint Aung, who heads the International Department of the CCDAC,
confirmed the draft amendments had been completed. “We are going to send this
bill to the Union Attorney General’s Office and later it will be discussed in
parliament,” he said.
“Drug
users are now arrested, but this bill would enforce steps that would make it a
health issue, rather than a criminal one,” he added.
Dr. Hla
Htay said he hoped the bill could be brought to the attention of the NLD
government and parliament within the next few months so that it could begin
reforms.
“Drug
addicts should not be imprisoned, instead they need opiate detoxification
treatment,” he said. “If they were found to be using drugs, police should urge
them to go to hospital.”
Phyo
Thiha Cho
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