Amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act

Singapore’s Parliament has passed amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act and the Constitution to allow for enhanced penalties against certain drug offences, as well as to grant the Central Narcotics Bureau the power to send users of psychoactive substances to state-run Drug Rehabilitation Centres. TJC highlights the problems with Singapore’s ongoing ‘War on Drugs’ approach.

What’s this about?

The Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Act escalates already harsh criminal penalties for drug offences – such as introducing caning for possession above a certain threshold – and extends the Misuse of Drugs Act to cover all substances with the capacity to have a psychoactive effect, unless the substance is on the exclusion list.

TJC has serious concerns about both this punitive approach to drugs, as well as how such policies are implemented and work in reality,

Policing over Health

MHA’s amendments are overwhelmingly about law enforcement and punishment, instead of public health and support for people who are on recovery journeys.

The proposed amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act and the Constitution will grant the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) power to arrest and detain even more people, as it will allow people caught using psychoactive substances to be sent directly to the state-run Drug Rehabilitation Centre (DRC) without charge or conviction.

The amendments push the government’s narrative that CNB uses their power to direct people to treatment and rehabilitation. But experiential and research evidence point out that DRC is essentially prison, just with additional counselling elements.

People who have been to DRC have told TJC that the experience of being detained in DRC – without clear information about how long they would be expected to stay inside – caused fear and anxiety, and that their time in DRC was dehumanising and not conductive to recovery.

Deterrence

Despite claiming, without clear evidence, that the death penalty for drugs is an effective deterrent, the Ministry of Home Affairs statement announcing the amendments said that “syndicates are willing to deal in larger quantities of controlled drugs in each transaction”. This casts doubt on how effective current measures really are.

We need a critical evaluation of current drug policy, grounded in science and evidence, not doubling down on punishment that cause harm and trauma.

Regulation?

In theory, there are potential benefits for a regulatory framework to ensure that new substances do not cause harm to people. But these must be situated in public health and human rights approaches, not one that privileges surveillance, control, and increased harm to individuals who are already vulnerable.

The recent amendments disregard the need to conduct an appropriate assessment which follows international guidelines. They are an attempt to govern all forms of psychoactive substances, without prior consideration of how likely such substances are to cause addiction, impact one’s biological or psychological state, or pose a serious public health or social problem.