Treatment Not Torture

Tchort

Tchort

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Across Asia, too many countries continue to use torture as a weapon in their war against drug abuse.

Even in the UN's crowded calendar, June 26 is a big day. Many governments burn confiscated narcotics in bonfires to celebrate the "International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking". Meanwhile, across town, members of nongovernmental groups might organise a candlelight vigil or a film screening to mark "International Day in Support of Victims of Torture".

It would be nice to think that there's time enough in the 24 hours of June 26 to fight both drug abuse and torture. Truth be told, many countries use torture, pure and simple, in their war against drugs. This claim isn't entirely a rhetorical flourish: In the "treatment and rehabilitation" centers of many countries, physical and mental abuses - which in some cases amount to torture - are inflicted on drug users in break-them-down, boot camp-style discipline, to which the difficulty of withdrawal itself pales in comparison.

International health and drug-control agencies - including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation - all endorse comprehensive, evidence-based drug dependence treatment services, including medication-assisted therapy (for example, with methadone or buprenorphine), both inside and outside prisons to protect the health and human rights of people who use drugs.


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Truth be told, many countries use torture, pure and simple, in their war against drugs.


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In many places, though, people who use drugs are forced into "treatment and rehabilitation" centres without any form of due process or trial, sometimes for months or even years. Often run by military or public security officers and staffed by people with no medical training, these centres rarely provide treatment based on scientific evidence. Depending on the country, "treatment" consists of a regime of military drills, forced labour, psychological and moral re-education, shackling, caning and beating. People who voluntarily seek treatment in such centers are exposed to these forms of punishment, as are people who are (legally or otherwise) sent there by their parents or relatives.

A number of Asian countries have such programs. In Singapore, according to a government report distributed in March, people who use drugs can be arbitrarily detained for extended periods of time and caned if they relapse - even though relapse is a common symptom of recovery. (The scenario is cruelly ironic, given that Singapore has also banned buprenorphine, one of the most effective treatments for opioid dependency, and is now jailing people for using it.)

In Malaysia, detainees in compulsory drug treatment centers report that treatment involves extended periods of military-style discipline and abuse. Detainees are made to crawl through animal excrement or to "act like a whale" by drinking and spitting out dirty water, and are caned. In Cambodia, juvenile detainees in a government-run "Youth Rehabilitation Center" have told of being shocked with electric batons.

In China, as many as 350,000 people are interned in mandatory drug-detoxification and "re-education through labour" centers, where they can be held without due process for up to three years. Treatment consists of unpaid, forced labour and psychological and moral re-education - marching in formation, repetitive drills and rote repetition of slogans (such as "drug use is bad, I am bad"). The UN special rapporteur on torture has stated that this system "can also be considered as a form of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, if not mental torture".

Such torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is not restricted to drug rehabilitation centers. As UN human rights monitors have observed, it is a fundamental part of many countries' "war against drugs". According to a recent study from Indonesia, which involved interviews with more than 1,000 drug users, 62 percent of participants reported physical abuse at the hands of the police. These incidents ranged from beatings by officers with hands, fists or boots, to cigarette burns to electric shock. Those interviewed said the abuse was usually to coerce confessions or to extort bribes. The UN special rapporteur on torture described as routine the torture and ill-treatment of people who use drugs by Indonesian police.

So which is it, a day against drug abuse or a day against torture? Governments should create national drug policies that ensure access to evidence-based drug treatment. At the same time, they should protect everyone - including drug users - from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. It is difficult to see how people who use drugs can get evidence-based drug treatment if they face torture from military or public security forces in drug "treatment and rehabilitation" centers. Unless countries take positive measures to end the use of boot camp-style discipline in the name of the fight against drug abuse, the celebration of June 26 will continue to be two-faced.
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The Phnom Penh Post

6/26/2009

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009062626742/National-news/Treatment-not-torture.html
 
That is some horrible shit! How can places be allowed to pull shit like this without intervention? I doubt the fucking murderers and rapists in half those countries get worse treatment.
 
I would think that would drive more to relapse (or even more desperately want to) and find solace from their torture in drugs.

What does "can" mean in this article? Jailed?
 
^^^ i think u ment caning or caned. to use a cane to deal punishment. usually a public beating with a cane. i remember reading an article about rehab in russia. same type of abuse. but they said they had the highest recovery rate with only a couple relapes. the relapes all reulted in suicide ( prob due to the treatment they face again if caught). its sad they would treat people ike this "for the better of the nation" yeah BS. truthful education. some peope just like things (chemicals). some people are addicted to shopping, eating, exercize, gambling. why dont we uphold these principles for these addictions??? not really but for real.
 
And when people say that they hate America.................................................
 
That would make me want to take more drugs. Any fucking twat knows that torture only increases resistance and hatred towards your enemey. In this case the state.
 
flacky said:
And when people say that they hate America.................................................
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What is your point? We should love America because it isn't the worst place on the planet?

Sounds like a catchy slogan to me, "America...hey, at least it isn't Singapore"
 
CafeContin said:
"America...hey, at least it isn't Singapore"
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I'm not getting into the argument about america - but that's funny.

That article starts by saying governments accross Asia burn a narcotics bonfire. What a bloody farce! I've lived in Asia for nearly a year, and i know that the police don't destroy the majority of drugs they catch. Whatever this day is about, it's not about burning off the narcotics. It's just a show.

The police do nothing but steal it, then either use it or sell it back to the market. I'm not anti-all-police, but these guys are absurdly corrupt. But in a country where they have to pay a year's salary just to get into the police force, what else would they be?

Stating the obvious here though. Right now, any Asian Drug War is a crock of shit. The treatment drug users get, according to this article, shows how sadistic and heartless dictators are when they get so much power. Until you've lived there, you don't know how powerless the people are.
 
We burn out narcotics too in the US; only in the basement of a police facility in an incinorator (and like other countries, it seems that a lot of cops are busted switching drugs evidence with lactose and sugar- so who knows how many are successful).

While not so openly brutal, the US has a history of subjecting addicts to torture (involuntary electro-shock therapy, forced high dose extended duration Belladonna (re: Datura) 'cures', etc) and continues today (A European court recently agreed that subjecting opioid addicts, including legal Methadone maintenance patients, to unsupervised forced detox without medical aid in prison is torture, many lobbyists and politicians are trying to put together a legislative package that forces opioid addicts on probation or parole to undergo mandatory Vivitrol or Naltrexone depot injections which in my opinion is torture).

The AP a few weeks ago carried a story about a church run 'addiction treatment' center in the Balkans where addicts were simply cane'd relentlessly. The cure for addiction: mindless savage violence.
 
An Asian prison is a place I wouldn't like going, in there you eat cockroaches, and can catch all sorts of sickness.

In America, you go to prison, you get raped (Gang raped 56 times true story).

Someone press the self-destruct button.
 
I have a girl in my class from Cambodia and she said she has a cousin who got caught with yabba(flavored methamphetamine pills). Anyway they only had a few and they were for personl use and he still got 2 yearss in jail. And then after jail he was forced into a drug rehabilitation center justr like one you stated and he died. The true cause was stated as unknown. But what she heard from friends and family they know its from malnutrition and being forced to work unbelievably hard while being beaten. And all this is being done in a hot humid climate. RIP
 
Crimes against humanity. There should be some international Nuremberg type trials for these fascist sadists. This war on drug users is insanity.
 
flacky said:
And when people say that they hate America.................................................
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why do you think this whole tough-on-drugs and moral-theory-of-drug-abuse stuff caught on with the rest of the world? nevermind all the other shit we do to other nations
 
drug_mentor said:
That is some horrible shit! How can places be allowed to pull shit like this without intervention? I doubt the fucking murderers and rapists in half those countries get worse treatment.
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From whom? Not the US as it's hard to take the moral high ground while running somewhere like the holiday camp for 'non-combatants' in Cuba & because of the complicity in such things, a lot of EU states are also tarred with the same brush.

Very few other other places have enough clout to be able to be effective
 
We can't even get Russia to try a pilot Methadone program.

How are we going to stop any of this? Like F&B says, no more moral high road. Unless we hold another Nuremburg trial for Bush administration officials, close Guantanamo, make public all of the CIA documents, punish the 'private contractors' who did the actual torturing, etc. we won't gain that high road again.
 
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