Liability for Drug-Addiction – Inefficient Expenditure of Judiciary Resources

Liability for drug-addiction is inefficient expenditure of the judiciary resources which is already limited – this is the result of the survey “How Effective Street Drug-Testing Is” which will be presented at the hotel Sheraton Metekhi Palace tomorrow.

It is the first innovatory survey in drug-addiction politics in Georgia which was carried out by Alternative Georgia, Institute of Public Affairs of Georgia, Association of Young Economists and Center for Constitutional Rights.

According to the organizers, the police has been detaining about 50 000 people annually since 2006 and tests them on drug addiction. They think similar strict measures will make drug-addict give up the habit; they think they are protecting future generation from trying drugs.

According to the results, in 2008 19 302 out of the 43 029 tests were positive; 1 605 them were imprisoned for the second fact of drug-addiction. 18 076 245 GEL was paid for drug-addiction as a fine to the state budget. At least 8.43 policeman/hour was spent on each drug-test. The annual expenditure on drug-tests and corresponding judiciary procedures amounted to 18 million GEL in 2008. In 84.5 % of the cases the fines were paid not from the legal income of the fined person but from other sources (families, friends, loans, criminal activities). Only 36 out of 491 tested people stopped drug addiction and after punishment most of them (53%) started to take narcotics 3 months later. However, 11 months later all of them started to take narcotics again.

The organizers of the survey state that according to their research, punishment and imprisonment of the drug-addicts have minimal (or no) influence on drug-addicts and causes inefficient expenditure of the restricted resources of the law enforcement bodies and judiciary system. As a result of the liabilities, which have no analogue in democratic states, drug-addiction was not reduced. These measures resulted into criminalization of 1 605 people what finally causes not only involvement of new drug-addicts but also in the criminal activities which are more dangerous for the society.

Interpresnews