To punish drug dealers only
Ministry of Justice suggests that a small quantity of drug possession for personal use was not punished. He wants higher penalties for drugs trafficking and more effective drug treatment
Minister Andrzej Czuma accepted the pre-draft amendment to the Act on counteracting drug addiction. Now the foundation must be approved by the government.
The act voted nine years ago for possession of even the smallest quantities of drugs has not complied with hope. Consumers, including the sick and those who derive profits from their disease, that is, producers and traffickers - Wilamowska says Barbara, coordinator of the ministry for the National Program for Drug Addiction. - We propose a system in which the occasional users will not be prosecuted. This will be an opportunity to identify and assist the addicted individuals.
Today, the offender is anyone who has traces of the drug. The Ministry proposes the following: if the quantity is "small and intended for personal use" and the prosecutor considers that the punishment would be "pointless because of the circumstances to commit the act, as well as its degree of social harm" - will be able to withdraw from the proceedings. This means that no one will be punished anymore for possession of one joint. By now the were sentences for possession of drug "inside the own body". Many occasional consumers of cannabis and ecstasy were sent to prison. The Cannabis smokers are 60 % of sentenced for drug posession - Says Kajetan Dubiel from Prison Service.
Punishment for possession of even small doses of the drug was introduced in 2000, the police believed that this will send dealers to prison, because they will have no excuse that it was the drug "for their own use."
Parents of addicted children were sure that this will force their kids to treatment. However, experts warned that it will lead to clogging prisons with the occasional smokers and hard addicts. Yes it has become so in the U.S. and Russia, which after a few years, withdrew from the unreasonable law.
Data confirm that Poland has obtained the opposite effect. In 2007, the courts sentenced for drug trafficking only 804 persons, whereas for possession - up to 17 times more!
Rather than rise, declined the number of penalized drug dealers.
Between 1999-2007 the number of convictions for the trade dropped twice. Police has improved it’s statistics of nearly one thousand percent!
For the police to improve the statistics, because of the nearly one thousand percent! increased detectability of drug possession offenses.
Actual Law deters drug users from the harm reduction programs. Do not seek after the one-time needles and syringes to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis, for fear of arrest by the police.
"Prohibition" has - as is clear from the school students research - an increase in both drug use and the availability of narcotics.
