Illicit Drug use in the Asia Pacific Region - Burnet Institute

Situational analysis of illicit drug issues and responses in the Asia–Pacific region
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The Standing Office for Drug Control under
the Ministry of Public Security has become the
backbone of the government’s drug control
and prevention strategy . As of June 2000,
the National Committee for the Prevention
and Control of AIDS, Drugs and Prostitution
(NCADP) came into existence following a
merging of the former Government Steering
Committee for Social Evils, the National Drug
Control Committee and the National AIDS
Committee . The NCADP has various roles
that include assisting in policy making and
monitoring and evaluating the work of those
implementing policies and activities . The
current committee is headed by the Deputy
Prime Minister but also includes 19 member
ministries and branches such as the Ministry
of Health and Ministry of Public Security, as
well as representatives from the Fatherland
Front (a political mass organisation) .
As part of a national drug control policy,
the government has created a National
Drug Control Action Plan 2001–2005 and
this outlines the government’s policies
and strategies for all drug control issues .
Currently in preparation is the government’s
National Drug Control Master Plan which will
cover 2001–2010 with assistance provided by
UNODC . This had not been published at the
time of writing .
In recent years an important long-term drug
control objective within drug policy has been
to promote harm reduction, which is to
involve combining preventative drug abuse
control and HIV/AIDS programs . However, it
has been suggested that a series of ‘social
evils’ campaigns aiming to eliminate all drug
use in the country has resulted in serious
adverse health consequences, namely the
ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic that impacts
upon IDUs (Ministry of Public Security,
Standing Agency in Drugs Control, 2003;
Oanh, 2004; United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime, 2003b, 2004c) .
Law enforcement responses
In December 2000 the National Assembly
passed Vietnam’s first Law on Drug Control,
which came into effect from June 2001 .
While it recognises that drug use is a social
issue and that drug users are not criminals,
the legislation contains what many believe to
be harshly punitive measures for young drug
users (between 12 and 18 years) who have
no fixed address or who relapse following
detoxification in their homes or community .
The punishment includes one year of
mandatory detention and labour (Vu Doan
Trang, 2001) .
Within the Ordinance on the prevention and
control of HIV/AIDS, Article 12 states that
all acts of prostitution, intravenous drug use
and other practices susceptible to HIV/AIDS
transmission are strictly prohibited (Chung,
2000) . Security regulations require police to
detain those who are found in possession of
or using drugs and to commit the person to
a compulsory drug treatment centre or a drug
re-education centre . Earlier the sentence was
for six months (Quan et al ., 1998) but currently
it is two years and it can reportedly go up to
five years: generally the terms are two years
plus three years of vocational training . The
program was originally only for Ho Chi Minh
City and Hanoi but there was a decree for
a national expansion of this project in 2003
(N . Walsh, personal communication, 2005) .
Drug users in these centres are dealt with by
MOLISA and the Ministry of Public Health,
while the Ministry of Health takes care of
treatment, often using traditional medicines
(Nam et al ., 2003; Oanh, 2004) .
Additionally, criminal law decrees in 1999
and a decree on administrative treatment
in 1995 are important legislative bases for
the government’s ‘struggle against drugs’ . At
the same time the Vietnamese Government
believes that it is very important to reduce
harm for the drug users in two ways: to
prevent and stop the behaviours that lead
to the illegal use of drugs; and secondly,
to organise drug treatment for users . There
are specific administrative responses to drug
use and/or distribution . Users who have
been educated several times and have been
put in the centres but relapse will be put
in prison from three months to two years .
If they commit the crime again, they will
be put in prison from two to five years
(Criminal Law, Article 199) . People who
force and tempt others to use drugs illegally
will be imprisoned from two to seven years .
Those who commit crimes against children,
pregnant women and other users who are
in the process of giving up use of drugs are
imprisoned for up to 15 years . Causing death
and organising illegal drug use merit a life
sentence or the death penalty (Criminal Law,
Article 200) . Those who rent or let places for
illegal drug use can be imprisoned for 15
years (Criminal Law, Article 198) (Nguyen
Quoc Viet, 2001) .
The death penalty may be imposed for those
in possession of small quantities of heroin,
opium or cannabis, but this is rarely carried
through . However, a mandatory sentence
of death, usually by firing squad, exists for
those convicted in possession of 600 grams
or more of heroin (although a figure of
100 grams has been noted as well) and/or
5 kilograms of opium (Ministry of Public
Security, Standing Agency in Drugs Control,
2003; United States Department of State,
Bureau for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs, 2004b) . In late 2004 a
man found trafficking 3 kilograms of heroin
from Laos was executed by firing squad in
the northern province of Bac Giang (Herald
Sun, 2004) .
From 1996 to 2001 the courts have handed
out penalties for drug offenders that include:
288 death sentences, 255 life sentences,
2292 sentences of 10–20 years’ imprisonment
and 19,233 sentences of less than 10
years’ imprisonment . Even so, it is recognised
by the authorities that despite the regular use
of strict penalties, drug-related crimes are
rising (Ministry of Public Security, Standing
Agency in Drugs Control, 2003) .
Health and treatment responses
The expansion of the drug treatment centres
began in the mid-1990s, under the control of
MOLISA . These centres are run by provincial
departments called DOLISA . Such centres are
divided and referred to as ‘05’ for sex workers
and ‘06’ for drug users . Every provincial
administrator supposedly operates at least
one or two such centres, but some provinces
do not have such centres and consequently
some residents are shifted to nearby provinces .
Although there is officially a division between
05 and 06 camps, it is not unknown for some
women drug users to be held in sex worker
centres and some men have been held in sex
worker camps . A few centres hold both male
and female drug users (Uhrig, 2002) .
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Country profiles: Vietnam