Cure or Crime?: Armenian lawmakers revise punishment for drug abusers

A new amendment to Armenia’s Criminal Code will reduce illegal drug use and possession to a civil crime rather than a felony.

If the amendment goes into force (the amendment was approved by first reading in National Assembly on February 28) drug abusers will be subject to administrative fine – an amount in 200 to 400 minimal salaries (from 200,000 to 400,000 drams-5-,290) instead of the current two month imprisonment.
  But the changes that were assumed to be considered as relief for drug abusers are not welcomed by those against whom they are aimed.
  “One should be treated, instead of being imprisoned or fined for suffering an illness. Drug addiction is just an illness not a crime,” says a former drug addict in Vanadzor.
  The 45-year old man says he has been clean for seven years, after many year of abuse of intravenous injection.
  “My children were growing up and I, concerned with their future, gathered all my will and stopped it,” he says. He first tried drugs at age 26, when he used to work in a medical institution and had access.
  Now the former user is an expert at the Needle Exchange Program of the Armenian Red Cross Company. Many times he has faced temptations during the work but says he has managed to show willpower to help 4-5 of his drug addict friends get rid of the habit.
  “Let them fine those who just tried it,” the former user says. “If a person already has an addiction, it’s an illness already, so punishing is not right.”
  The World Health Organization says 9,000 people have been registered in Armenia only in 2006 as using drugs by intravenous injection. The total number of drug addicts in Armenia is believed to be 140,000, most of whom use marijuana.
  Arshak Dallakyan, a Vanadzor based doctor and drug expert believes the replacement of criminal persecution with an administrative fine for use of drugs is a strict measure.
  “Those huge fines will make their situation even harder,” Dallakyan says, adding that addicts cannot afford to pay such steep fines. He worries that this will lead to abusers turning to bribes to pay off police rather than face prosecution.
  Rights activist Artur Sakunts, coordinator of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly of Vanadzor believes drug addicts will prefer to appear in prison rather than pay a huge fine.
  Sakunts says for years his organization has provided legal advice to drug users in Vanadzor, where according to him there are about 1,000 people using drugs.
  Sakunts has prepared a guide for suspected drug users or dealers, the first in Armenia.
  A survey of 53 addicts in Vanadzor found that most first tried drugs while working abroad. At present there are 50 drug users registered at the psychological and neurological clinic of the Lori province. Gayane Kalantaryan, senior doctor at the clinic says annually 5 people come to the clinic to get treatment.
  By Naira Bulghadaryan
ArmeniaNow Vanadzor reporter