The Control Yuan yesterday accused the Executive Yuan and the Ministry of Justice of failing to make inroads against the use of illegal drugs, saying the cases cited in its investigative report attested to the futility of the nation’s anti-drug measures.
The investigative report released yesterday showed that the amount of illegal drugs confiscated had increased by 175 percent in the past 15 years, from 1,992.7kg in 1995 to 3,487.9kg last year.
“Drug abuse is growing at an amazing pace. The experiences in other countries show that the amount of drugs seized accounts for between 10 percent and 15 percent of all drugs sold, which clearly demonstrates that drug abuse [in Taiwan] is a serious problem,” the report said.
The report also found that China had outpaced Southeast-Asia’s “Golden Triangle” — the mountainous region that overlaps the borders of Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, where large amounts of illicit opiates are produced — as the main source for Taiwan.
About 68 percent of the 3,487.9kg of illicit drugs seized last year came from China, the report said, adding that 85.9 percent of the total ketamine and 24.5 percent of the amphetamine precursors seized also came from China.
“All the high-profile anti-drug activities launched by the government turned out to be fruitless and they ended up being a waste of resources and money,” Control Yuan member Yin Jeo-chen (尹祚芊), who was in charge of the case, said at a press conference.
In 2008, the Ministry of Education held more than 20,000 forums to spread its anti-drug message, but the number of young drug users still increased significantly, she said.
The Control Yuan report demanded that the government rectify the flaws in its drug trafficking control system.
“The nation’s borders are ill-equipped to detect illicit drugs. The Directorate-General of Customs has a total of 17 drug sniffing dogs,” the report said.
In Keelung Harbor, the express service counter at the customs desk is not equipped with X-ray equipment to detect drugs and no drug sniffing dogs are available, it said.
Yin said the government did not fully realize the seriousness of the problem facing the country because of drug abuse in terms of its social and economic impact.
According to the report, the number of suspects charged with drug-related crimes rose 318.6 percent from 1999 to last year, and the number of people convicted of drug-related crimes and the number of convicts sent to jail during the same period rose by 322.6 percent and 252.1 percent respectively.
“There is a general perception that drug addicts are either jobless people or people with poor educations, but we have found that there are also high-tech engineers that have become drug addicts to relieve work pressure,” Yin said.
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