Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Bill

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thank all the Members for their support. Everyone who spoke welcomed the Bill and it was across party lines. I will just deal with a couple of points which are slightly more philosophical or, perhaps, a matter of principle.

First, is Mr Pritam Singh's point going back to the speech when the LT regime was introduced in 1998. I thank him for the support of the Bill. The LT regime – LT1/LT2 – was introduced at a point when the situation was quite dire. We had about, I think, between 7,000 and 8,000 in DRC. Three quarters of them were hardcore opiate users. They repeatedly went back to heroin, morphine, opium and many were using crime to feed their habit.

I can talk about a few other factors but, essentially, we were facing a very difficult situation. And if we did not deal with it decisively, the sense was that it could have gotten much worse. In the context of the very serious concerns that the Ministry then had, the LT regime was conceptualised.

The proposals received very strong support from Members and the larger community, and also the people who worked with the addicts. They were very concerned because they could see that many of the addicts they were working with did not change their attitudes. So, decisive action had to be taken, it was taken, and what the LT regime did was to keep away from society many of the hardcore users who could have infected many others, who could have induced many others to come into the drug trade and drug abuse situation.

So, together with strong enforcement, more preventive education, improvements in rehabilitation and the LT regime, I think we dealt effectively with the situation. As I said earlier, from nearly about just under 6,000 people being arrested in 1996, we are now down to just about 3,000. So, you can say, roughly, it has fallen by half. So, we are in a much better situation, but we are in this situation because of the actions that had been taken in the past. At least that is my conclusion.

Mr Pritam Singh is right in asking the question. The profile of the abusers over the 20 years has changed with the profile change of the general population as a whole, though I do not have the figures right here to give. The other point is that the drugs of choice have changed as well, from the very hardcore heroin to more NPS and so on.

Today, nearly two-thirds of the new abusers are under 30. Again, a different situation, compared with what we had 20 years ago; many with higher educational qualifications, professionals, and many of them use drugs like "Ice" and NPS.

Also, over a period of time, we have built a substantive body of evidence-based work on rehabilitation based both on international experience and local research, counselling techniques, psychological interventions, evidence-based programming and technology, and the importance of family involvement, stable employment and the crucial nature of extended post-release support.

So, today, we decided that we will make this move. As Mr Pritam Singh and other Members have said, it is not without risks. One of the risks is, of course, how people might characterise it. But people must be slow to characterise the Singapore Government as being weak or soft on drugs. Some people might take that view, but I think we have to do the right thing.

The knowledge and experience built up over the last 20 years enable us to take a risk-based approach which, as far as possible, take into consideration an individual's risk and protective factors, so that the intervention is most effective and appropriate.

Fundamentally, our philosophy of a drug-free Singapore has not changed. But we will continue to take an evidence-based approach. We will see what is it that we can improve, and we will have no hesitation in refining or even changing our policies based on evidence.

If I may deal now with the points – again, slightly more philosophical in nature – raised by Nominated Member of Parliament Ms Anthea Ong. She suggested that it is a habit to do with brain structure and could be beyond people's control. I think it will be wrong of the Government to say we will not consider certain things or we will not accept certain things. It is not a hard line which precludes consideration of evidence. We have to, when we deal with public policy, deal with evidence and base our policies on evidence and science.

But I will caution against taking approaches which are fashionable – I am not suggesting the approaches the Member suggests are fashionable – and which have been thoroughly discredited if you have looked at the evidence from the countries which have taken that approach. I think their experience shows these approaches to be thoroughly discredited. We will be quite stupid if we blindly follow because the arguments are attractive but not backed by evidence.

So, I think there is scope for saying that we will look at research, we will look at evidence, and we will manage our policies accordingly. At the same time, we also have to believe in individual responsibility until evidence shows us otherwise.

The suggestion that we have to put human beings in the centre of our policies, I do not think we can agree more. Though, if I could decode what Ms Anthea Ong was saying, I think, in context, she was talking about the drug abuser and putting that human being at the centre of our policies, which is usually how debates in this field are often structured. When I say I agree completely, I would add this caveat that I will put also the victims of the drugs at the heart of our policies. And, usually, the victims far outnumber the drug. Let me put it slightly differently. There are victims on both sides. The drug abusers are victims, the drug traffickers, in some way, are the people who are benefiting from it. But there are a lot of people who are innocent bystanders who suffer as a result of other people's drug habits.

Let me give an example. These people do not find mention in many of these debates which centre on drugs. A few years ago, there was a little girl – I think she must have been four or five – called Noi Noi, charming, a life full of hope and expectation. Her adult relative, a drug abuser, killed her. She is a victim of drug abuse. She does not enter the statistics in the context of debates on drug abuse.

We could well put the drug abuser who killed her in the heart of our policies, but I think we should also spare a thought for the Noi Nois of this world.

It is often pointed out by the Singapore Government, in the context of the death penalty, the 15 grammes of diamorphine or pure heroin that a trafficker brings in is enough to feed around 180 drug abusers for one week. Those are all victims, too. The reason why – and I have said this many times, for those of us who have children – you will let your 10-year-old child go on public transport in Singapore but you will not let that child take public transport in many other first-world cities is because we are safe, and we are safe because of our drug policies. Let us not forget that. Let us not be seduced by the liberal arguments. Liberalism is not an unfair word. Where it makes good sense, we will take it, as Members can see from major aspects of this policy. But where it makes sense, we must be ready to stand our ground.

So, we want to achieve the core goal of reducing drug abuse in Singapore. As Mr Desmond Choo, Mr Pritam Singh and other Members pointed out, there is a risk of these changes being characterised as we are going soft. We will distinguish between abusers who only consume drugs from those who also face charges for other offences and we will point out that the approach we are taking is based on evidence. It is not going hard or going soft. There is no particular merit in being hard for the sake of being hard or soft for the sake of being soft, or attaching labels like right-wing, left-wing, liberal. Actually, all of that is irrelevant. What is relevant is the evidence, how we deal with it, what is in the interest of our society. And we deal with it openly and debate it openly. We set out the facts and we try and come to an agreement. That is the preferred approach, not ideology.

Those who face additional charges for other offences will continue to be charged for their drug consumption offences as well as their other offences. For those who only consume drugs and admit to their drug abuse, rather than staying in LT, as we said, they will undergo a shorter but a more intensive rehabilitation in a DRC which could be up to four years and then be placed on CBPs and then a longer supervision period.

To make sure we are able to intervene as soon as possible if they do relapse, even after they are released from supervision, the Director of CNB can require abusers who have completed their rehabilitation supervision or imprisonment to still report to CNB for urine or hair tests, when required. We will do this in a measured, targeted fashion.

Mr Deputy Speaker, we have introduced offences to protect children and young persons from the reckless acts of older people. We have to give the next generation the best chance of leading a drug-free life. Young people who are already on drugs, we must provide them with the support to get out of that cycle as quickly as possible. Hence, the change to mandate parents and guardians of young drug abusers to attend counselling.

Sir, we thank Members for the many useful suggestions, especially during last year's Parliamentary Motion on drugs, and today. Together, we will continue to work towards maintaining a drug-free Singapore. Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move.

*Question put, and agreed to.*

*Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.*

*The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Mr K Shanmugam.]*

*Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.*