VietNamNet Bridge – Drug addicts roam the street, indulging themselves into heroin orgies, littering syringes and needles after use at public places like in no-man’s land, and putting the people in HCMC at risk, all without being checked or deterred.

Police are there, law enforcement agencies are there, and rehab or detoxification centers are there, but social vices related to drug abuse are still mushrooming, simply because of the absence of a workable legal corridor, though municipal authorities have repeatedly called for the Government to make urgent and quick changes. Helpless leaders of the city have voiced their concerns again, this time at the ongoing sitting of the National Assembly. They want to be armed with measures approved by the NA.

Facts and figures are startling, when HCMC Police at a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc early this month reported that there were as many as 19,000 drug addicts in the city. This shows a steep rise of some 50% compared to that in end-2013. But such a number is just what has been recorded, while the real figure can be 50% to 80% bigger as quite many addicts from other provinces have been wandering in the city without a residence address, Tuoi Tre reports, citing Phan Anh Minh, deputy director of HCMC Police.

The number of criminal offenses in the city is rising alongside the number of addicts. In District 8, for example, of the 172 criminals detained recently, over half are drug addicts, says a police officer of the district in Cong An newspaper.

The key reason behind the rampant drug abuse in the city, say officials, is due to the introduction of a new law early this year, which requires that drug addicts can only be sent into drug rehabilitation or detoxification centers by a court order. The law is said to help prevent abuse of power and to protect human rights.

The Law on Administrative Violation Settlement issued on January 1 this year specifies that drug addicts can only be forced into a rehab center after a prolonged process involving many agencies including healthcare, labor, and police agencies, and the final step is decided by a court. This process is quite troublesome, according to Vnexpress. For instance, the healthcare agency that determines a person as a drug addict must have a special certificate from the Government. “In the entire city now, there is not a single healthcare agency meeting that condition,” says Minh of HCMC Police.

That is the reason why HCMC authorities so far this year have not been able to send any drug addicts into rehab centers, while the number of addicts is rising quickly, according to the news website.

In several meetings ahead of the National Assembly sitting, HCMC leaders have proposed changes to the law so that social order can be restored, and the Government has also promised measures to help the city deal with the problem. But given the urgency in addressing the problem, HCMC authorities put forth the proposal again early this week, demanding that the Assembly give them a special vehicle.

Huynh Thanh Lap, head of the delegation of NA deputies of HCMC, says it is high time the city be given a special mechanism to cope with the worsening situation, according to Tuoi Tre.

“What the city wants is a resolution from the National Assembly to help drug addicts in terms of detoxification, rehabilitation and consultancy,” Lap explains.

Other NA deputies from the city raise the same proposal and stress its urgency.

Le Thanh Hai, HCMC Party chief and also an NA deputy, says the special mechanism is only meant to save people from evils.

“It only means to save the people from evils for each family and for society,” Hai is quoted as saying in the paper.

Le Thi Quyet Tam, chairwoman of the HCMC People’s Council, says in an interview with Dan Tri that provisions under the Law on Administrative Violation Settlement cannot be enforced due to extremely complicated procedures required therein. “Under regulations, before sending addicts to a rehab center, they must be educated in the locality of their residence for between three and six months, then they must be handed over to social organizations, and they test positive for drugs. But many of such addicts do not have a specific place of residence, while there are no social entities tasked with taking care of addicts,” the chairwoman explains. She stresses that many tragedies have occurred, many serious crimes have been committed by addicts, so “please do not think that sending them into a concentrated rehab center constitutes a violation of human rights. The sooner addicts are sent to a rehab center, the greater benefits they will be entitled to.”

Lam Thieu Quan, a member of the HCMC People’s Council, says that drug addicts wandering in the city, using public places as their drug shelters and causing widespread disorders have tainted the city’s urban images. The Administrative Violation Settlement Law, although deemed as progressive and humanistic, is not suitable as addicts are making the most of its loopholes to make bad things unpunished, according to VTV.

A special mechanism for HCMC to cope with drug abuse is seen urgent, and such a mechanism will serve as a basis for amending the law so as to do away with the no-man’s land for drug abusers.

SGT/VNN