KUALA LUMPUR: Health minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa says imprisonment is not the answer in dealing with drug users, and a public health approach should be taken instead.

“We know that prison is not the place to provide rehabilitation treatment to drug users and addicts. A public health approach must be taken and prioritised,” she said in her opening address at the Addiction and Forensic Psychiatry Symposium here today.

Zaliha acknowledged that there were significant gaps in the enforcement of laws and treatment for drug users.

Earlier, Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman of Monash University, who gave the keynote address, said there should be a reform in how drug abuse cases are handled.

“The national anti-drugs agency of today is a mixture of treatment and rehabilitation as well as enforcement.

“It is not as effective as it should be in terms of prevention, treatment, care and support,” she said.

Adeeba said there has been a global shift towards a public health approach in countries such as Portugal, which has had a positive outcome in reducing HIV infection rates and crime.

“Globally, British Columbia in Canada, Canberra (Australia), some states in the US, and the EU are moving towards a public health approach,” she said.

In 2021, former home minister Hamzah Zainudin first announced the Drug and Substance Abuse (Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation) Act was in the pipeline to replace the Drug Dependants (Treatment and Rehabilitation) Act 1983, but this new legislation is not due to go before the Dewan Rakyat until next year.

Last year, Dr Sangeeth Kaur, clinical research coordinator at the Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS (Ceria), said jailing addicts is harmful, and they should be referred for treatment instead.

She said overcrowding in prisons also had an adverse medical impact, with many suffering from infectious diseases like tuberculosis.

Meanwhile, prisons department commissioner-general Nordin Muhamad said Malaysia aims to cut the prison occupancy rate by two-thirds in the next eight years and rely more on community corrections.

Last year, FMT reported that 60% of prisoners comprised non-violent minor drug offenders.

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