Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wellington Koo (顧立雄) yesterday rejected a media personality’s accusation that his call for addiction treatment to take place before “observation, rehabilitation or compulsory rehabilitation” — as stipulated by the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例) — was a call for the decriminalization of drugs.
At a public hearing early last month on amendments to the act, Koo called for pre-trial substance abuse treatment to precede “observation, rehabilitation or compulsory rehabilitation.”
Koo told the hearing that such treatment would help to prevent further dependence on illegal substances resulting from a drug user’s alienation from society due to incarceration.
“Judicial intervention alone will not solve problems of addiction or substance abuse. Putting drug users in jail serves no effective purpose other than to keep them out of sight,” Koo said.
“Even worse, jailing them would interrupt their education, work, social interactions and lives, making their reintroduction to society more difficult, and in the end would reinforce their psychological dependence to substances and cause an increase in drug-related crimes,” he added.
Internet celebrity-turned media personality Lucifer Chu (朱學恆), in an article published on Tuesday by online media outlet ETtoday said that Koo “not only spoke against making ketamine, a category 3 drug, a category 2 narcotic — which would allow police to secure search warrants — but he also advocated the decriminalization of the use of category 1 and 2 narcotics — including heroin, opium, cocaine, morphine and amphetamines — with no compulsory rehabilitation or jail time for users whose addiction has been cured.”
Chu described Koo as an “idealistic legislator-at-large who has never been exposed to second-hand ketamine smoke or been robbed or harmed by a drug-using criminal.”
Chu, whose Facebook page has more than 454,000 followers, cited messages from three people who have, in one way or another, been hurt by drug users.
One man said ketamine smoke from his neighbor has long filled his son’s bedroom.
A rank-and-file police officer said he was “nauseous” after seeing Koo’s proposals, adding that police efforts to curb drug abuse have constantly been restricted by government initiatives to curb the power of police.
One teenage girl told Chu she lost her father in a car crash, in which the driver who caused the incident was under the influence of a category 3 drug, adding that: “According to [the driver’s] mother, she could not have physically confined her son.”
Chu lambasted lawmakers at the hearing who called for “lighter punishments” for drug users.
“What kind of a war on drugs is taking place when [lawmakers] propose shitty motions urging for less punishments and for the decriminalization of all kinds of substance abuse?” Chu asked.
Koo yesterday said that pre-trial treatment “is not tantamount to the decriminalization of drugs.”
“Amendments to require pre-trial treatment would not affect penalties for drug users,” he said.
“To lower the number of drug users, the core problem that must be addressed is drug addiction and dependence, but what we are doing now is going straight to incarceration,” Koo said.
“Not only does jail do little to solve the problem of addiction, it might allow users greater access to drugs, due to collective incarceration,” he added.
The legislator said a significant amount of evidence shows that simply jailing drug users does not help solve drug problems.
“Addressing the root cause is difficult, while it is easy to just put people in jail,” Koo said. “Pre-trial treatment would just be a first, but necessary, step” to solve the drug problem.
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man