Vietnam Ponders Drug Decriminalization

[Heretic.Ape.]

Southeast Asia: Vietnam Ponders Drug Decriminalization

from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #536, 5/16/08


The Vietnamese National Assembly is considering legislation that would make drug use an administrative violation -- not a crime. Under current Vietnamese law, drug use is a criminal offense, a violation of Article 199 of the country's criminal code, and is punishable by up two years in prison.


But Truong Thi Mai, chair of the Assembly's Committee on Social Affairs, told a press conference last Friday the committee had recommended scrapping Article 199. "Being addicted to or using drugs should be considered a disease, and should only be subject to administrative fines," Mai said. "We cannot jail hundreds of thousands of drug users, can we?"


In actuality, Vietnam does not typically jail drug users; instead, it confines them in mandatory drug detoxification centers for up to two years, or in some centers, up to five years. Local governments maintain lists of drug addicts in their areas and send them to detox centers at their discretion.
Few drug users are actually prosecuted under Article 199, so the impact of a decriminalization move would be mostly symbolic.


Still, that would be a good thing, said Le Minh Loan, a police chief and former director of counter-drug efforts in a province with one of the country's highest heroin addiction rates. "I think it makes sense to drop the article," Loan said. "Few countries in the world sentence drug addicts to prison terms."


Vietnamese drug rehabilitation efforts are not particularly effective, Loan said. "The rate of relapse into drug use is very high."


While Vietnam has harsh laws for drug dealing -- 85 people were sentenced to death last year for drug offenses and nine more so far this year -- those laws have had little impact on drug use in the Southeast Asian nation.
Harsh enforcement is not working, said Mai. "Many people have been sentenced to death for trafficking heroin, but heroin trafficking is still rampant," Mai said. "The traffickers know that the laws are strict but they are still trafficking narcotics."

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Nice find. Thanks.
	Interesting, thanks for sharing.

[Expat98]

This news is pretty surprising to me. Drug users in Southeast Asia are usually treated very harshly. Several of the airports have large signs that read, "DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS" for your viewing pleasure as soon as you land. Combine this regional attitude with a communist government, and it doesn't really seem like a likely formula for tolerance on drug use. But anyway, glad to see that at least someone in Vietnam is thinking rationally about this.

[cra$h]

swim's glad to see that someone realized "those laws have had little impact on drug use" and said, well, if it's not working as well as we want int, it must be time to be rational and compromise between what we can and cant do.

[cosmicruler]

Originally Posted by Expat98

This news is pretty surprising to me. Drug users in Southeast Asia are usually treated very harshly. Several of the airports have large signs that read, "DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS" for your viewing pleasure as soon as you land. Combine this regional attitude with a communist government, and it doesn't really seem like a likely formula for tolerance on drug use. But anyway, glad to see that at least someone in Vietnam is thinking rationally about this.

swim agrees in part..
thats trafficking NOT using though...
and it seems like communism is more open to new ideas and thoughts than say the worlds biggest superpower the US of a....good on ya vietnam
just hope it doesnt encourage even more junkies to go travel through there beautiful country.

[Expat98]

Originally Posted by cosmicruler

swim agrees in part..thats trafficking NOT using though...

No, I am talking about both trafficking AND using. As I mentioned, drug users are usually treated very harshly in Southeast Asia - that is, if you're caught and it proceeds far enough along to have to deal with the matter officially.

Originally Posted by cosmicruler

it seems like communism is more open to new ideas and thoughts than say the worlds biggest superpower the US of a

It does seem that way these days, but historically that has not been the case. Communism historically has been well known for its extreme dogmatism and lack of willingness to adjust pragmatically to solve problems. A very good book about this in the case of Vietnam is Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam. Read that and tell me if you still have a positive view of the Vietnam government.

Originally Posted by cosmicruler

...beautiful country

Ahh, now that much we will agree on. Vietnam is a beautiful and fascinating country!

[cosmicruler]

swicr hasnt really ever read many books on communism but has travelled extensively through SE Asia and loves the place and the people!...swicr finds it hard to fatham how any1 could have wanted to napalm entire villages and dump huge payloads of bombs across vast areas of vietnam,laos and cambodia...as far as swicr is aware laos was not part of the vietnam war(officially) and yet it has the title(or did) as the most bombed country on earth...!!!go figure?
makes swicr sick to think of these poor defenceless kindhearted people being killed for no good reason...they were just defending what is theres the same as the afghans and iraqis recently.
USA does not own the world!and if you look at there track record of wars over the last 100 years there record is pitiful!from what swicr has read they seem to do more harm than good and start more conflicts than they end!!

sorry got bit off topic.

[Panthers007]

Next Up department: George Bush declares the Socialist Republic of Viet~Nam a haven for drug addicts. War is declared!

Didi Mao, Dinky Dao time, boys & girls.

[Bajeda]

A few weeks ago the Economist had a special multi-article report on Vietnam that was quite fascinating to read. Nothing drug related, but fascinating nevertheless. Seeing how well they have progressed in so many other areas, I wouldn't be surprised if they started to develop a progressive and innovative approach to drug policy. Just hope that the US doesn't try to bully them into backing off!

[Expat98]

Vietnam Prime Minister Announces New Campaign Against Drugs

16:36' 10/06/2008 (GMT+7)

donglai.jpg
Drugs seized in the latest
trafficking incident are
incinerated in Nam Dinh City.

The Prime Minister has declared a new campaign against drugs from the beginning of June to the end of August.

The campaign needs to bring about a great positive change in drug prevention and control, affirmed Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

He has asked the Ministries of Public Security, Finance and National Defence to set-up plans for the efforts to include all forces such as police, customs, border guards and marine police.

"Beside the general purposes, the annual campaign will this year especially focus on improving the leading role of the Party in the fight against drugs and for ensuring new laws on drugs are enforced," said Vu Quang Minh, vice-head of drug enforcement under the Ministry of Public Security.

Forces will be tasked with eliminating all places selling drugs, arresting all drug dealers and gaining complete control over the drug business.

"The office for drug control has given out its schedule for this month and has begun the campaign with meetings that are attracting thousands of participants," said Vinh.

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs is also co-operating with the Ministry of Public Security, provinces and People's Committees in many cities to encourage drug addicts to enter rehabilitation centres.

The Ministry of Health has pushed-up the experimental project of treating drug addicts with Methadone in HCM City and the city of Hai Phong.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is being called on to help make opium growers in mountainous districts of north-western provinces be held accountable to drug laws.

During the campaign, Ha Noi's People's Committee, along with the steering committee for preventing AIDS, drugs and prostitution launched a competition to find the best volunteer who had worked on anti-drug activities in 2008.

The National Assembly has just approved supplementary laws to add to existing laws on drug prevention which will take effect starting January 1, 2009. The supplementary laws will correct the perceived inadequacy of drug laws originally put into place in 2000.

For example, the law of 2000 did not detail regulations on treating drug addicts in terms of methods and time frames. It also did not address funding for fighting drugs or how to encourage organisations, individuals and families to join the fight.

In the first five months of 2008, 1,076 drug cases were handled, an increase of 161 cases over the same period of 2007.

By the end of May, police had sent 1,120 drug addicts to rehabilitation centres, an increase of 108 over 2007.


(Source: Viet Nam News)

[stoneinfocus]

Yes, they say this liberation shit, and then, you read in the newspapers, the military kills all special K dealers like in the GUS, with high tech eqiupement,
That´s what they want and where they get their money for, of course from our taxes and their kicks from, just that, when they´re getting their military-endorphine-kicks, many will be killed by them.

So how could one break up this CC catch?Looks as if the lawmakers were in the end too frightened to vote against the weapons lobby and the executives striving for more money and equipment.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Stop posting nonsense. And I am not just talking about this post - I am talking about many of your posts. Maybe you sh...