Forced rehabilitation of drug users in Indonesia not a solution

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Earlier this year, Indonesia executed 14 people, including Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, for drug offences. President Joko Widodo portrayed the executions as the ultimate weapon in an expansive “war on drugs” deployed to protect the country’s young generation from an  alleged “national drug emergency”.

But his policy is harming the very people he claims he wishes to protect.

A problematic approach

Widodo’s tough approach does not only apply to drug traffickers. The Indonesian government, through its anti-drug agency, the National Narcotics Board (BNN), is pushing compulsory treatment for people with drug dependence. This coercive approach is jeopardising health gains made by existing harm reduction programs and is fertile ground for corruption and abuse.

BNN pledges to rehabilitate 100,000 drug users in 2015. They aim to double the numbers every year – to 200,000 in 2016 and 400,000 in the year after that.

But there aren’t enough problematic drug...

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URL: 
https://theconversation.com/forced-rehabilitation-of-drug-users-in-indonesia-not-a-solution-43184