President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday reiterated her zero-tolerance policy toward drugs, as she called on the judiciary to redouble its efforts to control the drug problem, work hard to crack down on economic crimes, and defend the nation’s security from enemy infiltration and espionage.
Tsai made the remarks in a speech to mark the graduation of a group of students at the Investigation Bureau training program yesterday, which was held at the bureau’s headquarters in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店).
A total of 73 bureau officers were inducted after the one-year training program. The group was made up of 49 men and 24 women with an average age of 24.5.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Lauding the work of bureau officers, Tsai outlined three areas for officers to focus on in the coming year, national security, economic crimes, and illegal drugs.
“As I have said before, as long as I am president, the fight against illegal drugs will be the No. 1 priority of this government. Our zero-tolerance attitude toward drugs will be consistent,” Tsai said.
She then praised the bureau and other judicial agencies for their coordinated efforts in a recent drug bust, which saw the largest volume of cocaine seized in the nation’s history.
Tsai’s determination to crack down on drugs has been called into question, after her comments at the Presidential Office’s weekly High-Level Policy Coordination Meeting on Nov. 28 last year were perceived by some as too soft.
“For drug addicts who are not involved in drugs trafficking and selling, we should see them as ‘patients’ and ‘victims.’ We should not deal with them only by convicting them of crimes, punishing them and marginalizing them from society. Instead, we should help them stay away from drugs and integrate them back into society with the assistance of the government,” Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) quoted Tsai as saying at the meeting.
In related news, there has been wrangling between various judicial agencies on the punishments meted out for drug trafficking, after a local court judge gave a 21-year-old man convicted of attempting to smuggle 4kg of amphetamine from Taiwan to Australia a suspended prison sentence.
The judge said he decided to be lenient, because the man admitted the crime and he had no previous convictions.
However, public prosecutors criticized the decision, arguing that the man should receive a heavy term since he was seeking to smuggle a large quantity of drugs into a foreign country.
They are planning to appeal the ruling.
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