Harm Reduction on Narcotic Drugs Offenses

Abstract

Determination of drug offenses, especially the production, importation and possession of drugs in accordance with the guidelines of the crime that must not be tolerated as a zero tolerance can be considered as a forced and violent punishment and encouraging the practice of non-humanitarian acts for drug offenders, including the interpretation of the offense and the penalty ratio in a quick manner without any seeking the truth of the case and affecting the wrongful exploitation of officials involved in the arrest of the perpetrator. These cause the problem of inmates over drug cases overflowing the prison and stimulate to the practices that do not meet the standards set forth in the UN minimum standard treatment for prisoners. Therefore, the use of the Harm Reduction Policy should be applied, which is originated by the 3 important concepts, ie,  Decriminalization, including the pursuit of reasons for not taking criminal cases with small-scale drug offenses, Drug Liberalization, the idea of allowing people to use drugs more freely by Reduce crime and prosecute measures, and Drug Legalization, which are law enforcement in the country to ensure that the use of such drugs is legal.

From documentary studies guidelines analysis in foreign drug enforcement, including the Federal Republic of Germany French Republic Netherlands Switzerland, USA, New Zealand Portugal Japan, Canada and Denmark and Thailand to assess the effectiveness of legal measures in each country according to international standards and whether or not to achieve the objective of reducing the severity of drug enforcement. The study results that the successful country has reviewed the policy and legal provisions can be defined to set measures to harm reduction in drug cases that have various pilot projects, the classification of violent offenders divided from minor offenders or patients and the measures to support training coercion. Moreover, the use of drugs for medical use is proposed via the cooperation between government agencies and the public sector in an integrated manner. Countries in this group include Portugal, Canada, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland. And New Zealand etc. As for Thailand, we are considered to be the beginning of the harm reduction in drug cases in the form of policy and principles but not yet in practice. In the meantime, the government has amended the Narcotics Act for classify the offender between patients and patients seriously and pay more attention in the treatment process Including opening channels for researching drugs that may be used as medical benefits.

Finally, Suggestion for Thailand is that the government must support the establishment of a civil society mechanism to support the work of preventing and solving drug problems in an integrated manner to lead to Drug Liberalization. Then, should require clear legal measures to classify those related to drugs between drug addicts, occupiers for drugs, groups of affected people, contractor, retailer, major supplier or criminal organizations from each other for fair proceedings that are appropriate to the level of offenses committed by the offender according to the Individualization of punishment, Decriminalization and Penalization. This shall empowers the court to exercise discretion in determining the appropriate measures for each individual based on data from the history of the offense, the circumstances of the offense and shared opinions between the police, prosecutor and the Drug Committee, by which this committee will use the medical principles in the initial diagnosis of whether the offender is a patient who has to be treated separately or not to lead to further selection of appropriate treatment options.