Posted on October 2, 2011, Sunday

THANK YOU: Syed Mohd Junaidi (second right) receives a token of appreciation from Wong while Sharifah Mariam looks on during the seminar ‘The Roles of Women in Combating Drug Menace’.

SIBU: National Anti-Drugs Agency (AADK) is enlisting women for their new programme ‘Masyarakat Wanita Antidadah’ (Mawadah) to fight the drug menace.

Giving an awareness talk during the seminar ‘The Roles of Women in Combating Drug Menace’, AADK Sibu branch rehabilitation officer Dalin Nani George said the agency was galvanising women’s support for early intervention to keep their families safe from it.

Going beyond the conventional method, women are engaged under the newly rolled out Mawadah programme, and they can help keep their children’s behaviour in check, given their multi-functions at home.

She recalled a tragic incident where a 13-year-old girl from a broken family got hooked on drugs, ruining her future in the process.

“Women are more patient and have multiple roles as homemakers, mothers, spouses and sisters, allowing children to be closer to them.  Children find it more convenient to talk with their mother rather than father, and this is where they can apply the early intervention method.

“They can play an effective role in Mawadah, disseminating information on the dangers of drug. This will go a long way for youngsters to shun drugs, including safeguarding them from being duped into becoming drug mules,” Dalin told those present at a hotel here yesterday.

The seminar was jointly organised by Pemadam Sibu district and ‘Pertubuhan Kebajikan Islam Malaysia’ (Perkim) Sibu branch, and participated by various NGOs.

She was optimistic that equipped with better awareness about the dangers of drugs, children would be better able to resist being influenced by bad hats or coaxed into becoming drug mules.

Recently, Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Richard Riot was quoted in a newspaper report to have said his ministry was concerned about the number of Malaysians caught overseas with drugs brought in from the country with or without their knowledge. He said up to March 31 this year, 11 Malaysians were arrested in China alone.

Dalin revealed that the membership for Mawadah here is about 300 people here,

Cautioning that when early intervention was not applied, the drug menace could ruin an entire family, she revealed that the target groups were community leaders, mothers, grandmothers, female relatives, sisters, family members and female counsellors among others.

Earlier, she revealed the presence of a one Cure and Care 1Malaysia Clinic in Sarawak to help those besieged by drugs problem.

Besides Sibu, there was one AADK office each in Kuching, Miri and Bintulu.

Sibu District Officer and Pemadam chairman Wong See Meng in his speech, called for more such programmes to be rolled out.

“This will help create heightened awareness on the dangers of drugs and the grave consequences associated with them,” Wong said.

Among those present were state Pemadam executive secretary Syed Mohd Junaidi Wan Zawawi and its Sibu executive Pemanca Sharifah Mariam Syed Junaidi.

– Next Entry >>

BEIJING, Oct. 1 — Judicial authorities have set up 59 provincial-level rehabilitation centers and treated more than 35,000 drug users in these centers through the country’s efforts to curb drug-related crimes and maintain social stability.

The centers receive substance abusers who enter voluntarily or are forced into treatment, said Chen Xunqiu, vice minister of justice.

The centers are exploring ways to help drug addicts break their habits, recover from psychological or mental problems and better integrate themselves back into society, Chen added.

In addition to treating addiction, the centers offer psychological consultation and vocational training to patients, according to the ministry.

Altogether, these centers have about 7,000 beds, 202 doctors and 141 psychologists, with about 5,000 substance abuse patients currently receiving treatment.

The number of registered drug users in China neared 1.4 million as of the end of 2010, according to figures from the Ministry of Public Security.

CHICAGO — Hurt in a car crash, a Geneva, Ill., woman got hooked on the painkiller Vicodin. When one doctor stopped prescribing it, she got it from others. She was sneaking around so much, her husband thought she was cheating, said her counselor, Jake Epperly.

The face of drug addiction, experts say, is increasingly white, suburban and upper-middle class. New users include older adults seeking relief from pain and teens looking for a high.

Prescription medications represent the greatest epidemic in drug abuse since crack cocaine ravaged cities in the 1980s and 1990s, said Epperly, owner of New Hope Recovery Center in Chicago and Geneva.

Statistics tend to back him up. Deaths from prescription drugs tripled nationwide from 2000 to 2008 and exceeded deaths from heroin and cocaine combined, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The deaths reached an all-time high of almost 37,500 in 2009, the tipping point in an ongoing trend recently reported by the Los Angeles Times: For the first time, drugs killed more people in this country than car crashes.

Heroin and prescription painkiller abuse are intertwined, experts say. The two are similar enough that addicts who run out of one may take the other as a substitute.

Users often start on prescription meds because they are easily available and considered safe. Once hooked, they may move on to heroin, which is now easier to try because it’s pure enough to snort or smoke rather than inject, Epperly said.

Both types of drugs have something else in common: They are depressants that kill by suppressing breathing, particularly when mixed with alcohol or other downers.

And the most common way teens get started on prescription pills, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), is through the home medicine cabinet.

Though the war on illegal drugs has been hotly debated in recent months, prescription-drug abuse involves a product that is legal but controlled — and deadly when misused.

The DEA estimates that 1 in 6 people younger than 20 has tried prescription drugs to get high.

Jack Riley, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Chicago division, said he’s alarmed that drug cartels are starting to supply street gangs with prescription drugs. And the gangs are sending members to doctors to fake ailments and get prescriptions.

“It’ll take educators, parents and law enforcement to go after people involved in prescription-drug abuse — just like we’re going after the Mexican drug cartels — because they’re doing that much damage,” Riley said.

A drug dealer is no longer just someone standing on a street corner, law-enforcement officials say. Instead, he or she may also be a doctor or pharmacist, even a package delivery driver — regardless of intent, or whether he or she is even aware of what’s happening.

In June, an Aurora, Ill., man pleaded guilty to conspiracy to illegally deliver drugs through a package delivery company. Prosecutors said Steven Immergluck, 35, a sales representative, and others recruited a pharmacy and doctors to write and fill prescriptions for an Internet drug provider. They then delivered the goods nationwide to customers’ homes.

Through just one of multiple schemes, prosecutors alleged, the defendants delivered 35,000 packages and made almost $500,000.

Similarly, a Calumet Park, Ill., man was charged in September with illegally diverting the painkiller hydrocodone from the Skokie pharmacy where he worked, the DEA reported. Earl Newsome, 57, is accused of selling some 700,000 pills with an estimated street value of up to $7 million.

Among users, Bill Stelcher, a retail salesman from Hoffman Estates, knows firsthand how prescription drugs can ruin a life.

Wracked with back pain, Stelcher, 44, had surgery in 2000. For three years, he lived with excruciating pain and took a succession of painkillers, including Vicodin and OxyContin.

He was taking 30 to 40 pills a day and stayed in bed most of the time, but a pain-management clinic kept renewing his prescription, he said. Follow-up surgery finally fixed his back, but by that time he was hooked, he said.

Five or six times he tried to quit on his own, going through painful withdrawal, but he ended up back on the painkillers, he said.

“The drugs completely take over,” Stelcher said. “It was killing me. If I’d had it my way, I would have been dead.”

His wife got him into rehab, and he has been clean for almost seven years, he said.

“There are places you can get help,” he said. “It will bring life back. You can smell and taste and see things again differently.”

In Will County, the recent focus is on the troubling rise of an old scourge: heroin. A decade ago, the county had five or six heroin deaths a year, with most victims men in their 40s.

In recent years, the number of deaths has nearly quadrupled, to more than two dozen annually. More victims are in their teens and 20s, as John Roberts learned.

Roberts, a retired Chicago police officer, had moved his family to what he thought was a safe community in south suburban Homer Glen.

Two years ago, his son Billy, 19, tried heroin, Roberts said. The teen was put into rehab, then monitored closely to keep him from other users, he said. His son went to meetings but didn’t think he needed them because he wasn’t an addict, Roberts said.

The teen turned up dead at a friend’s house, he said.

“I thought I’d seen a lot and knew how not to become a victim,” Roberts said. “It’s like, ‘How is this happening?’ “

In response to such tragedies, Will County officials started HELPS — Heroin Education Leads to Preventive Solutions. The program, launched this summer, will use TV commercials and public speakers at schools and churches to warn about drug abuse.

Signs of opiate drug use include pinpoint pupils, too much sleep, too little motivation, unexplained absences and worsening grades, counselors say.

Parents need to keep their prescription drugs away from children and throw them out when they’re done with them.

More generally, the Roosevelt University researchers recommend drug education for young people, increased funding for treatment and overdose prevention.

They also recommend some limited protections for those who call 911.

Overdose victims die needlessly, health advocates say, because their friends are afraid they’ll get arrested if they call for help.

In memory of his son, Roberts is pushing for a new law to give drug users immunity from prosecution if they call for emergency help.

Washington state already has such a law in effect.

By NEIL BOWEN The Observer

Posted 2 days ago

A man battling a drug addiction who openly sold drugs in local bars, and continued drug offences following his initial arrest, has been sentenced to a year in jail.

Alfred Allen Moore, 42, of Sarnia who had previously pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine for trafficking along with possession of oxycodone, ecstasy, methamphetamine, production of hashish and violating a court-ordered drug ban was sentenced Thursday.

Citizens disturbed by Moore’s open sale of drugs called police and he was arrested Jan. 23 with three grams of cocaine, the hallucinogenic stimulant ecstasy, oxycodone and $600.

Moore was released on bail but arrested April 23 when he had methamphetamine, ecstasy and had been producing hashish in violation of bail conditions.

Moore can’t be trusted in the community, said federal prosecutor Michael Robb during a prior court appearance.

Robb was seeking a 14-month jail sentence for Moore who had a lengthy criminal record including three drug convictions.

Moore wants a last chance to keep his family, job and health through a house-arrest sentence, said defence lawyer Don Henderson.

Moore was aware of everything he was putting at risk and committed the recent crimes anyway, said Robb.

Moore’s longtime drug habit ended for two years when he started working as a tradesman and he was involved in the methadone program, said Henderson.

But Moore relapsed into drug use.

House arrest was not warranted due to the lengthy and persistent criminal record despite Moore’s significant rehabilitation efforts, said Justice Mark Hornblower.

Offences committed while on bail showed public safety could not be accomplished through house arrest, said Hornblower.

Moore’s jail time includes six months of pre-sentence custody and will be followed by a year’s probation when Moore must take substance-abuse counselling.

A lifetime weapons ban was imposed and Moore must give police a DNA sample.

nbowen@theobserver.ca

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The Nation September 27, 2011 11:50 am

Working together under the “12D” network, they said the policy might lead to silent killings or violation of drug addicts’ and families’ rights – just like the Thaksin Shinawatra administration’s “war on drugs” policy. Rehabilitation for general addicts organised in army camps and prisons might also have negative impacts on the addicts, they said.

The activists’ requests included clear measures and guidelines for law-enforcers to prevent rights violations, the cancellation of Army- and police-organised rehabilitation, and the implementation of the Drug Addict Rehabilitation Act 2002, which treated addicts as patients rather than criminals.

Late yesterday, Chalerm met with deputy national police chief General Panupong Singhara na Ayutthaya to discuss the drug-suppression policy and give him the names of six Thai nationals reportedly involved in drug trafficking.

Chalerm said the authority had information on about 200-300 people reportedly involved in drug trafficking and smuggling in border areas but there were no politicians involved. He said his discussions with Panupong confirmed they had matching and credible information and he instructed Panupong to act on it, making arrests and seizing assets.

Bangkok’s Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court Tjuesrday gave two highway policemen 33 years and four months each in jail and Bt2 million in fines for having in their possession 3,000 yaba tablets for sale. Another highway cop was given the benefit of the doubt and acquitted, but remains in detention during appeal.

Pol Senior Sgt-Major Pornchai Noilatthee, Pol Senior Sgt-Major Wisanu Theungsook, and Pol Senior Sgt-Major Thanu Phuthong were arrested while manning a checkpoint in Krabi’s Phraya district on June 24 last year in a police sting operation.

The first two officers had allegedly nabbed three drug suspects along with 3,000 yaba tablets, but released them in exchange for Bt100,000 in cash. The two officers told the suspects to pay another Bt300,000 for the drugs. However, Nakhon Si Thammarat police later arrested the three suspects with the drugs, leading to the sting operation.

Pornchai claimed he and Wisanu received Bt40,000 each and paid Thanu Bt10,000 while giving Bt10,000 to the others. Finding the two officers guilty, the court handed them a life sentence and Bt3 million fine each, reduced to a 33-year-four-month jail term and Bt2-million fine because of their useful confessions.

In Phichit’s Wang Sai Phun district, police Tuesday searched a house and arrested a drug suspect aged 19 along with 37.59 grams of crystal meth, 399 yaba tablets, 3.02 grams of marijuana, two guns, and six records of drug customers.

It was reported that drug dealers used the opportunity of the flood crisis – in which most police were occupied helping flood victims – to distribute drugs.

“People who are dependent on drugs in Vietnam need access to community-based, voluntary treatment,” Joe Amon, health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch in New York, said in a statement. “Instead, the government is locking them up, private companies are exploiting their labor and international donors are turning a blind eye to the torture and abuses they face.” Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga called the report “groundless,” saying compulsory drug rehabilitation in Vietnam is “humane, effective and beneficial for drug users, community and society.” Vietnam’s drug rehabilitation centers comply with Vietnamese law and are “in line” with drug-treatment principles set by the U.S., the U.N. and the World Health Organization, Nga added. Officials from the U.S., Australia and the United Nations declined to comment. The U.S. last year provided $7.7 million to the country for methadone treatment and community-based drug intervention, according to the US Embassy website. Injecting drug users are a driving force behind HIV infections across Vietnam. The World Bank funded an HIV/AIDS prevention program in 20 drug rehabilitation centers across Vietnam that ended last year.

“We have not received any reports of human rights violations in the drug rehabilitation clinics supported by the project,” said Victoria Kwakwa, World Bank Vietnam’s country director. “If we had, we would have conducted a supervision mission to ensure bank policies were met and concerns fully examined.” Detainees inside the Vietnamese drug centers report beatings and spells of solitary confinement, and some who attempted escape say they were captured and shocked with an electric baton as punishment, according to the 126-page report that interviewed 34 former detainees in 2010 who were held at 14 centers in and around southern Ho Chi Minh City. It also charged Vietnam with forcing prisoners to sew clothing, lay bricks or husk cashews for between $5 and $20 per month, a violation of domestic labor law, which guarantees a minimum monthly wage of about $40. Instead of providing health services inside the centers, donors should focus on releasing detainees back into their communities, the report said, citing government reports that place the relapse rate for drug users treated inside the centers at 80 percent or higher. China and other Southeast Asian countries have also come under fire from rights groups in recent years for alleged human rights violations inside similar drug rehabilitation facilities.

Several large escapes from Vietnam’s drug rehabilitation centers have been reported in recent years. The centers, which began opening after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, are one facet of Vietnam’s ongoing campaign against drug abuse, prostitution and other so-called “social evils.” Most detainees are young male heroin users, the Human Rights Watch report said, citing government data. Some are rounded up by police while others are sent to the centers by family members. Vietnam says there are 138,000 drug addicts in the country and 30 percent them are HIV positive, down from 60 percent in 2006.

Source: Yellowbrix

AP

The federal government has denied using taxpayer dollars to fund Vietnamese drug rehabilitation centres which one advocacy group has labelled nothing more than “forced labour camps”.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Vietnam is imprisoning hundreds of thousands of drug addicts and subjecting them to abuse and forced labour through its compulsory drug detention centres.

It’s called on international donors, including Australia, the United States and the United Nations to halt funding, accusing them of helping “facilitate human rights abuses”.

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But an AusAID spokeswoman said Australia did not fund the mandatory drug centres, and was actively lobbying Hanoi to have them shut down.

She said Australian dollars are, however, provided directly to drug users in the centres through the HIV/AIDS Asia Regional program, to which AusAID has contributed $4 million over five years.

“Evidence has shown compulsory drug detention centres to be both ineffective and counterproductive in the treatment of intravenous drug users and in containing the spread of HIV,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The Australian government continues to make regular representations to the government of Vietnam urging it to close these centres in favour of more effective community-based support centres and to focus on the treatment of intravenous drug users in their own communities.”

Australia’s ambassador to Vietnam visited two detention centres just last month advocating for a closure of the mandatory facilities and the punitive treatment of drug users.

HRW has called drug treatment at the centres “ineffective and abusive,” claiming donor support for health services allows Vietnam to “maximise profits” by detaining drug addicts for longer periods and forcing them to do manual labour.

It said the centres were little more than “forced labour camps”.

“People who are dependent on drugs in Vietnam need access to community-based, voluntary treatment,” said Joe Amon, HRW’s health and human rights director.

“Instead, the government is locking them up, private companies are exploiting their labour and international donors are turning a blind eye to the torture and abuses they face.”

The AusAID spokeswoman said the department was not aware of any reports from its staff about abuse in the centres.

Inmates inside the Vietnamese drug facilities have detailed beatings and spells of solitary confinement, and some who attempted escape say they were captured and shocked with an electric baton as punishment.

The claims are detailed in a HRW report, which took in the accounts of 34 former detainees in 2010 who were held at 14 centres in and around southern Ho Chi Minh City.

The report also accused the Vietnamese government of forcing prisoners to sew clothing, lay bricks or husk cashews and then paying them below the minimum monthly wage.

China and other south-east Asian countries have also come under fire from rights groups in recent years for alleged human rights violations inside similar drug rehabilitation facilities.

There are 138,000 drug addicts in Vietnam and 30 per cent them are HIV positive, down from 60 per cent in 2006.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — An international human rights group urged Vietnam to shut down drug rehabilitation centers that it said subject inmates to abuse and forced labor. It also called Wednesday on international donors to check the programs they fund inside the centers for possible ties to human rights violations.

New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Vietnam of imprisoning hundreds of thousands of drug addicts over the past decade without due process and forcing them to work long hours for little pay.

It also alleged that the U.S. and Australian governments, the United Nations, the World Bank and other international donors may “indirectly facilitate human rights abuses” by providing drug dependency or HIV treatment and prevention services to addicts inside some of the centers.

About 309,000 drug users nationwide passed through the centers from 2000 to 2010, with the number of facilities more than doubling — from 56 to 123— and the maximum length of detention rising from one to four years, the report said, citing government figures.

The report called drug treatment at the centers “ineffective and abusive,” claiming donor support for health services inside such facilities allows Vietnam to “maximize profits” by detaining drug addicts for longer periods and forcing them to do manual labor.

“People who are dependent on drugs in Vietnam need access to community-based, voluntary treatment,” Joe Amon, health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch in New York, said in a statement. “Instead, the government is locking them up, private companies are exploiting their labor and international donors are turning a blind eye to the torture and abuses they face.”

Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga called the report “groundless,” saying compulsory drug rehabilitation in Vietnam is “humane, effective and beneficial for drug users, community and society.”

Vietnam’s drug rehabilitation centers comply with Vietnamese law and are “in line” with drug-treatment principles set by the U.S., the U.N. and the World Health Organization, Nga added.

Officials from the U.S., Australia and the United Nations declined to comment.

The U.S. last year provided $7.7 million to the country for methadone treatment and community-based drug intervention, according to the US Embassy website. Injecting drug users are a driving force behind HIV infections across Vietnam.

The World Bank funded an HIV/AIDS prevention program in 20 drug rehabilitation centers across Vietnam that ended last year.

“We have not received any reports of human rights violations in the drug rehabilitation clinics supported by the project,” said Victoria Kwakwa, World Bank Vietnam’s country director. “If we had, we would have conducted a supervision mission to ensure bank policies were met and concerns fully examined.”

Detainees inside the Vietnamese drug centers report beatings and spells of solitary confinement, and some who attempted escape say they were captured and shocked with an electric baton as punishment, according to the 126-page report that interviewed 34 former detainees in 2010 who were held at 14 centers in and around southern Ho Chi Minh City.

It also charged Vietnam with forcing prisoners to sew clothing, lay bricks or husk cashews for between $5 and $20 per month, a violation of domestic labor law, which guarantees a minimum monthly wage of about $40.

Instead of providing health services inside the centers, donors should focus on releasing detainees back into their communities, the report said, citing government reports that place the relapse rate for drug users treated inside the centers at 80 percent or higher.

China and other Southeast Asian countries have also come under fire from rights groups in recent years for alleged human rights violations inside similar drug rehabilitation facilities.

Several large escapes from Vietnam’s drug rehabilitation centers have been reported in recent years.

The centers, which began opening after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, are one facet of Vietnam’s ongoing campaign against drug abuse, prostitution and other so-called “social evils.”

Most detainees are young male heroin users, the Human Rights Watch report said, citing government data. Some are rounded up by police while others are sent to the centers by family members.

Vietnam says there are 138,000 drug addicts in the country and 30 percent them are HIV positive, down from 60 percent in 2006.