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This year you will publish a report on the Czech experience.
Can you give us an overview on the report?
(Joanne Csete) We are specially keen to give details about
cases of good decision making on progressive drug policy,
and the Czech republic is a very good example of that.
Especially given that they came out of many years of Soviet occupation and
found a way to go in a direction that
was respectful of the rights of drug users, especially their right to health services.
(Tomas Zabransky) What happened in the Czech Republic
was what happened everywhere after the fall of the iron curtain.
The drugs arrived, I mean other drugs, specifically ***.
We had an open drug scene for a short time here, in Prague,
in the very center of the city, which was not very usual,
which attracted a lot of media attention.
There is one thing, which makes the Czech Republic definitely distinctive, and it's methamphetamine.
We are the only country in Europe, where the methamphetamine is the major problem drug, major injected drug.
Where the majority of people who are addicted to illegal drugs are addicted to methamphetamine.
which is locally called Pervitin.
After 1990, after the fall of communism it was probably a part for the general liberalization of the society.
And there was the abolishment of the death penalty,
even there was the abolishment of
homosexual intercourse under 21, I think.
And as probably a part of this quite a huge social move.
also the possession of drugs for use was completely decriminalised.
(Joanne Csete) The slovak republic seemed to go back to a more soviet kind of policy,
in some ways that have changed a little bit over the years
whereas the Czechs held fast to a policy
that really was concerned about distinguishing minor from less minor drug crimes
and keeping people in contact with health and social services.
(Uvan Douda) We started to practice "harm reduction"
even before the revolution
After the revolution this issue opened up.
and we started to exchange syringes and needles.
A system of harm reductton, care, consultant services
and system of substitution, etc were created.
More than 70% of problematic drug users are in contact
with a medical center or with a counselling institution.
Currently, the problematic users are "getting old".
and young people are not falling
into drugs head over heels.
And the number of *** positive drug users is very small,
which is a very good result.
(Joanne Csete) The Czech officials also stayed very true to the idea that
scientific evidence can help in policy making.
So they actually invested in a very important study about whether
criminalisation would actually do what it's proponent said it would do
and reduce the number of drug users which it didn't do.
(Tomas Zabransky) Every single study I am aware of or I did myself says
there is no impact of the drug policies to the levels of drug use in the society.
What you directly influence with a drug policy are harms.
It's not like if you make it more strict, the use goes down,
if you make it more legal the use goes up.
That's one thing. The other thing is it's always quite interesting
which type, which patterns of drug use you speak about.
Do you speak about experimentation, do you speak about injection drug use.
What we do have is one of the highest prevalence in lifetime use among school kids.
Several times higher than in the Netherlands, almost as high as in the United States,
which is also interesting because they have anything but not depenalisation or decriminalisation.
If you look at it from the point of view of public health,
or public security, it was extremely successful.
I mean, we have one of the lowest *** rates.
Okay, more countries do have it around.
We have one of the lowest rates in viral Hepatitis C,
this is not the case in the countries around.
We have almost THE lowest rate of deadly overdose, the poisoning of the drugs.
We have very little drug crime, in terms of the secondary drug crimes.
(Joanne Csete) Civil side in the Czech republic played a key role from the beginning
in all of this and it's something I want to underscore.
The police has also been very active in these discussions,
they don't spend their time chasing down the smallest crimes,
which, I think, speaks to some good sense about how they use their resources.
The press jumped on the change in the law in 2010, I think
the headlines said Prague would be the new Amsterdam and things like that.
In fact, the change in the law that point was relatively minor.
(Tomas Zabransky) What really happened is that we have very specifically
defined the amounts which if you possess them
are still, misdemeanour
and if you are over them, they are a crime and that's it.
(Joanne Csete) The prisons are not overflowing with people who are convicted of minor crimes,
people have a chance not to have their lives ruined by criminalisation from minor crimes,
and, I think, that's maybe the most important indicator.
(Tomas Zabransky) I don't under why an activity which might endanger you and only you
should be subject of criminal law, it doesn't make a sense.
As a doctor, in terms of addictive use, so far we do believe,
that addiction is an illness.
How we could even think about to punish people because they are ill.
Read the new report: A Balancing Act: Policymaking on illicit Drugs in the Czech Republic