Thailand mulls to adopt "Portuguese Model" for drug solution

BANGKOK, July 6 (TNA) - A senior academic has called for the Thai government to adopt Portugal's drug policy, internationally-recognised as the "Portuguese Model", for a solution to drug addiction cases in the country. The senior official, Kittipong Kittayarak, Director of the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ), made the call while delivering a speech at a public discussion, entitled the "Portuguese Model:A Case Study on New Direction of Drug Policy", in Bangkok on July 5. Kittipong proposed that the Thai government apply the "Portuguese Model", in which administrative and public health measures are implemented to encourage drug addicts to enter an official rehabilitation programme, instead of prosecuting them, in order to reduce the number of drug inmates and to ease crowded jails in the country, apart from helping reduce drug addiction cases more effectively. To support his proposal, Kittipong pointed out that Thailand has faced the problem of crowded prisons due to a large number of drug inmates and has cost a state budget of up to 18 billion baht so far for drug prevention and suppression, as well as rehabilitation of drug addicts, most of whom are individual drug addicts or traders, rather than drug gangsters. According to the TIJ chief, several countries have modified their drug policies and laws to become more practical, namely Portugal, where administrative and public health measures have been introduced to take care of and bring drug addicts under control, resulting in a drop in the rates of drug arrests, drug inmates and use of drugs with international recognition. For Thailand, the senior academic said, decisive legal punishment against drug traffickers should be maintained, but drug addicts should be treated as patients to encourage them to get rehabilitation, jointly organised by all government agencies concerned, and to be able to return to the society for their normal ways of life thereafter with no stigmatised records on any drug charge. (TNA)