Cape Town - South Africa’s advisory body on substance abuse will look into whether or not drugs should be decriminalised or controlled, says a member of the body.
“We do, as the Central Drug Authority, need to keep an open mind,” Peter Ucko, an executive committee member, told the Cape Times yesterday.
The Central Drug Authority formulated the National Drug Master Plan for 2013 to 2017 - the country’s blueprint on substance abuse that was approved by cabinet about a month ago and implemented with immediate effect.
When it came to decriminalising dagga, the master plan said an in-depth probe was needed to look into whether or not this was needed in South Africa.
On Monday the Cape Times published an article in which a crime researcher and criminologist said decriminalising drugs would result in gangs significantly weakening as their main source of income would be ruined.
The idea, rejected by some authorities, including Community Safety MEC Dan Plato, resulted in heated debate on the Cape Times Facebook page.
On Tuesday Ucko said there was a “strong movement” in South Africa and other countries leaning towards decriminalising dagga.
“The Central Drug Authority would be remiss if it did not consider all meaningful scientific options which can be applied and implemented in the real world,” he said.
Ucko said the authority’s stance on implementing any strategy was that the strategy needed to be evidence-based.
“Whatever we do must be evidence-based. We want science. We want research,” he said.
“In South Africa and around the world we have a war on drugs.”
Ucko said “if you remove the war by making drugs legal” it did not mean the authority would stop acting and focusing on what it was meant to.
He explained the master plan focused on reducing the supply of and demand for drugs, as well as the harm caused by using them.
Ucko said investigating drug policies, one of several things the Central Drug Authority needed to do when looking at controlling drugs, was ongoing.
He said drug policy models that other countries, including Holland and Portugal, were following would be looked at.
According to a Netherlands government website, “soft drugs” including dagga could be sold from coffee shops there “under strict conditions”.
The website said the idea behind this was so that dagga users did not need to buy dagga from illegally operating dealers as this would increase their chances of coming into contact with hard drugs.
About 12 years ago the Portuguese government decriminalised all drug use. Ucko said aside from legislative models used elsewhere, research from those countries would be looked at to gauge the results, implications and effectiveness of the models.
Cape Times