Las políticas de drogas en el Este y el Sudeste Asiático continúan enfocándose en la aplicación de una legislación de drogas dura, incluyendo penas desproporcionadas para delitos de drogas (y el uso de la pena de muerte), centros de tratamiento obligatorio para usuarios de drogas y campañas de erradicación forzada de cultivos. Sin embargo, se han hecho algunas mejoras significativas en el campo de la reducción de daños.

Disponible en: http://idpc.net/es/region/sudeste-asiatico

COMPOSICIÓN REGIONAL

Cambodia, China, Mongolia, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, North Korea, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The prevalence of harsh, disproportionate penalties for drugs offences in the region are accompanied by severe and blatant violations of human rights justified through national legal systems across the region. Indiscriminate criminal sanctions have also led to the overcrowding of prison facilities across the region. Fear of detection and arrest has exacerbated the propagation of the HIV and hepatitis epidemics among people who inject drugs. Indonesia with 36% and Myanmar and Thailand with 22% present the highest ratio of HIV prevalence among people who inject drugs. China’s 6% may appear small in comparison, yet representing 135,000 people, it surpasses the total amount of people in Indonesia and Thailand who inject drugs (read more).   

In addition, despite calls by the UN and human rights activists for the abolition of the death penalty, more than half of the countries in the region allow its use for drug offences with appallingly high levels of executions in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam (read more, and here). Indonesia continues to apply the death penalty for drug offences while in Thailand, South Korea, Myanmar, and Lao PDR, it remains enshrined in national laws but is not currently used. A recent ruling on a drug possession offence in an Indonesian appeals court illustrates this worrisome paradigm when stating that “such measures (death penalty) are not contradictory but rather justified and suggested by the (drug control) Conventions”.

Although some governments are making efforts to move away from these practices, compulsory detention centres for drug users (CCDUs) are a serious concern for national activists and the international community, not least due to their adverse effects on people who use drugs. CCDUs remain widespread in places such as Thailand, China, Cambodia, Nepal, Vietnam, and Malaysia. In Singapore, the courts declared that: “the Singaporean Constitution does not contain any express prohibition against inhuman punishment”, these military-style camps forgo fundamental legal and human rights, while at the same time deny life-saving access to appropriate health facilities. This pervasive mechanism has perpetuated abuses of authority by public officials and exacerbated the spread of HIV in South East Asia. A further, appalling example is found in the judicial corporal punishment of caning and lashing utilised against people found in possession of small amounts of drugs in Singapore and Malaysia.

The spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C in China, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand amongst people who inject drugs has long surpassed epidemic proportions. Such estimates have reached 36% for HIV and 77% for Hepatitis C among people who inject drugs in Indonesia, and 22% for HIV and 90% for Hepatitis C in Thailand. The prevalence of these high rates have led some governments in the region to start implementing harm reduction measures such as opioid substitution therapy (OST) and needle and syringe exchange programmes (NSP), in order to reduce these high levels of infection. This being said, international funding remains essential for the functioning of harm reduction programmes in East and South East Asia. This is in great part to the considerable barriers that legal and policy frameworks impose on the efficient functioning of harm-reduction initiatives. Political willingness to debate on these policies has also been a strong obstacle. Despite chronic underfunding, harm reduction initiatives have been instrumental for reducing infection rates in South-East Asia. Malaysia has been amongst the most progressive nations as it has attempted, with limited resources, to make these evidence-based services more accessible for people who use drugs. Civil society plays a pivotal role in the continuous support for the implementation of NSPs and expansion of OST facilities. China has increased their NSP facilities to a national total of 900 in the past two years, partially as a response to observed decreases in the percentage of people who inject drugs infected with HIV falling from 9.3% in 2009 to 6.4% in 2011. Vietnam is also implementing such programmes in order to tackle HIV infections among people who use drugs.

The closure of illicit drug manufacturing facilities and seizures of drugs remain at comparatively high levels throughout the region as legal deterrents and tough law enforcement remain unable to tackle the incentives for the illicit production of drugs. China’s size and increasing activity in economic trade pose a particular challenge for law enforcement agencies, which are unable to fully cope with the movement of goods from and within their territory. Likewise, increased enforcement efforts targeting both suppliers and people who use drugs have boosted arrests across the region.

The destruction of crops destined for the illicit drug market remains a widely spread practice despite the socio-economic, health and environmental costs associated with it (Read more, here, and here). Myanmar has provided a prime example of the destruction of crops and the lack of results of this methodology. Several governments in the region have turned to alternative policies to tackle drug production. Alternative development programmes have now been implemented successfully in Thailand and through micro-projects in Lao PDR and Myanmar (Read more, here, and here). However, current political support for a development-led approach in the region and international financial support for alternative development programmes is still insufficient. A recent South-East Asian forum of growers of illicit crops has opened a ground-breaking opportunity for meaningful dialogue on positive alternatives to current policies.