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"POLICY ON ADDICTS: Nothing
good can come of proposal"
New
Straits Times (www.nst.com.my)
(17/06/05) Letters - Andrea Pavee, Petaling Jaya
I READ
with dismay the statement by Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek on a
proposal to provide free condoms and needles to drug users to control the
spread of HIV and AIDS. Drug addicts now need not fear capture and forced
rehabilitation but, instead, they will be assisted in their addiction. The
Government has also said it will provide methadone, a pain-killer, to combat
withdrawal symptoms.
Who is
going to monitor them to ensure that, instead of trying to combat their
addiction? This proposal is as ridiculous as the one made a few months ago
to isolate all drug addicts on an island and give them an ample supply of
drugs to feed their habit. The only way to combat HIV and AIDS is continence
and chastity.
I
suppose this proposal should come as no surprise since the programmes in our
drug rehabilitation centres are a failure. To address this issue, the
Government must first reassess its rehabilitation programmes and ascertain
where its point of failure begins and then must make effective changes so
that success breeds more success. If necessary, they should study drug
rehabilitation programmes in other countries with a higher success rate than
ours and implement those programmes here.
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