LETTER | Criminalising a disease the wrong way forward

LETTER | In 2001, the medical community in Malaysia embarked on the path of community-based treatment for opioid addiction.

By the year 2006, evidence showed that treating opioid addicts as patients rather than as criminals had brought about immense change to the scenario.

For more than 40 years, addiction was criminalised and addicts were incarcerated using Act 283, Drug Dependents (Treatment and Rehabilitation) Act 1983. Hundreds of thousands would have gone through this system. Evidence has shown that this does not work.

With virtually no funding except for the conviction that addiction is indeed a brain disease, medical doctors have proven that there is now an alternative solution.

Policymakers and legislators should now enact and enable appropriate specific regulations in the proposed bill to legally enable patients and doctors to opt for medication-assisted treatment (MAT).

The evidence is compelling. Since 2002 we have taken in more than 24,000 patients into community-based MAT by a network of more than 300 doctors across the nation. HIV-related death rates and drug-related arrests have fallen significantly since 2014.

This trend must be allowed to continue to save future generations of Malaysians from the direct and collateral damage of the previous policy of the war on drugs.

The Addiction Medicine Association of Malaysia strongly urges the government not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Criminalising and mandatory incarceration of addicts is wrong and should be discontinued.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.