MISUSE OF DRUGS (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read. 3.30 p.m.

The Minister for Home Affairs (Mr Chua Sian Chin): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Through Operation Ferret and other measures we have managed to contain the spread of drug addiction. However, as is the experience of other countries which face the drug abuse problem, recidivism is still high, Of 10,750 drug addicts placed under supervision after treatment and rehabilitation, 3,704 or 38.9% have relapsed. If we consider only those who were released two years ago or earlier, then as many as 70.8% relapsed during their two-year period of supervision.

Therefore, our major preoccupation now is to reduce the rate of recidivism. It has, however, proved to be an intractable problem. This is primarily because an addict's psychological dependence on drugs cannot be overcome as easily as his physical dependence which can be got rid of in a relatively short time with treatment and rehabilitation. Psychological dependence is a more complex problem which requires much time and effort to overcome. If this psychological dependence on drugs is not completely removed, any personal setback or temptation that he encounters can result in a relapse.

Some researchers have established that the most difficult period of adjustment for ex-addicts is the first two to three months after - their release from an institutionalised environment - in our case, the drug rehabilitation centres. It is during this period that they must be given maximum help in staying away from drugs. Unfortunately, many of them do not get regular employment during this crucial period. Since they are not meaningfully occupied for the greater part of the day, they are soon overwhelmed by boredom, frustration and a sense of inadequacy or even defeat. In such a state, ex-addicts are very prone to relapse.

In a tight labour market situation, ex-addicts should not have difficulty in getting employment. Unfortunately, there exists some prejudice on the part of many employers against ex-addicts. On the other hand, some of the ex-addicts are choosy about jobs. Some of them also fail to stay on the job because they are not adapted to the sudden freedom after detention in a drug rehabilitation centre.

In order to prepare the ex-addicts more fully for total release so that they have a better chance of getting and continuing in employment after release, my Ministry has worked out a Day-Release Scheme. This scheme will bridge the gap between the strictly controlled regime in drug rehabilitation centres and the completely free environment outside. It is an extension of the current rehabilitation programme.

Under the scheme, day-release camps will be set up. Inmates of drug rehabilitation centres who are considered ready for day-release will be transferred to the day-release camps. They will be found jobs outside the camps and be paid the same rates as other workers doing a similar job, including Central Provident Fund contributions. They have to return to camp every day after work when a urine sample will be taken for testing. If they are found to have abused drugs again or if they should breach other conditions of their day-release, such as not turning up at the place of work or found malingering at work, they will be sent back to the drug rehabilitation centres.

The day-release camps will be run as half-way houses. They will have a more relaxed regime with more recreational facilities than in the drug rehabilitation centres. Also, SANA counsellors will be encouraged to visit the ex-addicts in the camps so as to establish a close rapport with them. Meals will be provided for the inmates but they will have to pay for their meals taken outside the camps. Inmates may be allowed to spend the weekends with their families.

The Day-Release Scheme does not only prepare the ex-addicts to rejoin society but also provides the means to test whether they can resist the temptations which they must face eventually. Those who pass the test will have a stronger psychological resistance to temptations. Those who fail the test will be detected promptly through the daily urine tests and through other means.

Employers should no longer be reluctant to employ ex-addicts who are on day-release. They have the reassurance that ex-addicts who misbehave will be taken back to drug rehabilitation centres. They can also expect prompt replacement of ex-addicts who abscond or who have to be taken back. In return, all that we want of the employers is that they treat the ex-addicts as they would treat their other employees.

From 1st September this year a pilot scheme was launched on a voluntary basis. Fifty ex-addicts who volunteered were allowed to work in a factory in Bedok. They work in two shifts. I am pleased to say that so far the employer has found the day-releasees to be good workers and all of them have shown exemplary conduct.

We plan to set up day-release camps in the major industrial areas of Jurong, Kranji and Bedok/Chai Chee. The first day-release camps will be located in Changi to cater for firms in the Bedok and Chai Chee areas requiring day-releasees. A Job Placement Unit has been established in the Central Narcotics Bureau, and so far it has met with encouraging response from employers. Based on the number of inmates in drug rehabilitation centres, it is anticipated that between 1,100 and 1,200 ex-drug addicts will be placed on day-release by August next year.

To implement this scheme, section 34 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, 1973, has to be amended to make provision for the granting of leave to inmates for the purpose of their employment outside an approved institution. Clause 5 of the Amendment Bill seeks to empower the Minister to make regulations for the granting of such leave. In order for.the day-release scheme to be effective, disciplinary sanctions have to be included in the Regulations.

Section 33 of the Act has to be amended to increase the maximum period of detention of an inmate from two to three years. This is necessary to ensure that the day-release phase will not be at the expense of the normal period required for treatment and rehabilitation in drug rehabilitation centres. Clause 2 of the Bill is for this purpose.

Clause 4 seeks to deem that an inmate is in legal custody while he is outside an approved institution for authorised purposes.

I am also taking the opportunity to make other amendments to the Act to regularise or facilitate existing practices. Presently only the Director of the Central Narcotics Bureau has power under section 33(1) of the Act to require persons who are reasonably suspected to be drug addicts to be medically examined or observed by a Government medical officer. It is necessary to delegate this power to his Deputy in order to remove the bottleneck in the processing of suspects whenever the Director is not available to exercise the power. Clause 2 of the Bill seeks to do this.

There is currently no provision in the Act whereby an inmate can be taken out from detention and be produced at places where his attendance is necessary. For example, an inmate may be required to attend court or other proceedings either to answer legal charges or as a witness. Clause 3 seeks to provide the Superintendent of an approved institution with the authority to exercise such powers.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Eugene Yap Giau Chang (Mountbatten): Mr Speaker, Sir, we have just heard from the Hon. Minister a wonderful account of the Day-Release Scheme, but I beg to say that I cannot agree with quite a lot of the things that the Minister has said. I am especially unhappy about the extension of the detention period from two years to three years. I assume that the Minister must have decided on this magic figure on the advice that his experts give him and also from the statistics available to him but which I do not have.

At this juncture I would like to caution the Government that they have to keep an open mind so as to ensure that all the known precipitating factors that cause people to resort to drug-taking are eliminated. In making this point, I have my constituency in mind and here I would register disagreement with the Minister on the figures that he has received from his statisticians. No doubt he has worked on bigger population figures and I on a smaller one. Nevertheless, since it affects my constituents, I wish to quote them. I have 129 known drug addicts in my constituency, of whom 33 are in rehabilitation centres today. Of the 129 known drug addicts, 93% are first-timers and 0.008% are third-timers. That leaves a balance of 6.992% second-timers. You can see, Sir, that the Minister's figures disagree with mine. Of the number released today, 95% of them have been detained less than one year. I wonder, therefore, what this extra year is for. This, again, is where I cannot agree with the Minister because the Day-Release Scheme can start in the second year or even the seventh month. If this extension is basically meant for the hard-core addicts, then I suggest that it be included in a different section of the Act.

I then made a study of the background of 49 drug addicts who have been released. This, again, concerns my constituency. It reveals that a large proportion (about 60% of them) come from very large families, seven or more persons per family, who live either in one- or two- bedroom flats. This means that some precipitating factors have been at work, such as parental neglect, the children are not able to study, they cannot sleep, they get very disenchanted at home and therefore leave home and thereby expose themselves to very unhealthy peer group influence. I hope the Hon, Minister will agree with me here.

Mr Chua Sian Chin: Yes.

Mr Eugene Yap Giau Chong: The point I am trying to make is that we need to take swifter action to eradicate all the known precipitating factors. In making this point, I must particularly stress that although the Government has done quite a lot it has not done enough.

Sir, what I am worried about is that if a rehabilitated addict goes back to his home and is confronted or exposed to the same factors that caused him to take drugs, then he is likely to go back to drugs again, and no amount of extension of the rehabilitation period, whether it be three years, four years or more, is going to help him. I am afraid that our civil servants because they are 'over-efficient' might have a tendency to be extra careful and extra cautious about the addicts in the drug rehabilitation centres. With the extension of the period of detention to three years, they might decide to unnecessarily extend an addict's term in the drug rehabilitation centres. This will probably affect the total income of the family of the drug addict which is going to influence the total household very badly.

I have here, Sir, my own personal experience. During my meet-the-people sessions my constituents come to ask for assistance to get their son or daughter who is the sole bread-winner out of the rehabilitation centre as soon as possible. In making this observation I must qualify that I realise quite a lot of parents are impatient about wanting to get their children released, after having seen the tremendous improvement in the health of their children when they were in the rehabilitation centres. I also do realise that drugs are expensive and that some of the addicts do not really contribute to the total income of the household even if they are released. Despite this, I must still caution the Hon. Minister that he must be very careful in extending the period of detention.

At this point of time, Sir, can the Hon. Minister please tell the House whether we are really doing enough to eradicate the causes of drug addiction or are we simply fighting the effects of drug addiction and, at the same time, accepting drug addiction as something unavoidable in these times of changing social norms. I would like to ask: are we not confusing ourselves? We change, and we change, and we change. If it is for the good, it is all right. For instance, we know that pop culture which is characterised by loose morals and low social values forms one of the precipitating factors that draw people into drug addiction, and yet the Hon. Minister for Communications will be moving the Second Reading of the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation Bill, 1979.

The Acting Minister for Social Affairs (Dr Ahmad Mattar): You mean the Minister for Culture?

Mr Eugene Yap Giau Cheng: I beg your pardon. The Singapore Broadcasting Corporation Bill will affect us because as soon as RTS gains autonomy and becomes a corporate body, it is going to run wild looking for money. A sure way of getting money is to accept more and more advertisements, and we can therefore expect loose morals to be perpetuated on TV. If that is the case, we are going to build a potential reservoir of undesirable influence on our people. Here again, we are mopping up rather than tackling the problem at source. Sir, should we not therefore re-examine our position and ensure that we act concertedly to eliminate all the known precipitating factors, such as the lack of control and care of our children, the problems of working mothers, absence of moral standards or even the presence of double standards, dull homes, the pressures of schooling, and bad peer group influence?

Sir, I cannot therefore support the Bill. 3.52 p.m.

Mr Chua Sian Chin: Mr Speaker, Sir, I wish to thank the Member for Mountbatten for making a provocative speech and asking questions of me, which gives me an opportunity to clarify. I will try my best to give a comprehensive explanation to some of his misconceptions of the intention of the Amendment Bill.

First of all, an extension of the period of detention from two to three years is necessary in order to accommodate the day-release scheme and, secondly, it is not done just because we want to prolong the detention of the drug addicts in the drug rehabilitation centres. As I have explained in my speech just now, we do not want the period of normal rehabilitation in the drug rehabilitation centres to be encroached upon by the need for the extra period necessary for the day-release scheme.

We have not arrived at the figure of three years by any magic. I do not think we can arrive at any magic figure either. It is just pure common sense that if we need a longer period to accommodate the day-release scheme we have to extend the period from two to three years. But may I say that this period of extension from two to three years is just the maximum period of detention. It is not a period which will be imposed on every addict or inmate of the drug rehabilitation centres. Perhaps the Member for Mountbatten is not aware that if a person has been sent for rehabilitation in a drug rehabilitation centre, his case is being regularly reviewed to determine whether or not he has been fully rehabilitated, and the review is not done by any Government official but by a Review Committee chaired by a medical officer or a person with medical training. In fact, the chairman need not be a Government medical officer. The present Review Committee is chaired by a psychiatrist on a voluntary basis, and in its membership there are also people who are social workers. The Review Committee considers every case on its merits, Therefore, when a drug addict's case comes up for review after six months, if he is found to have been fully rehabilitated he is released or, if he is not released, he may have his stay extended for another three or six months. So every case is treated on its own merits. There is no blanket formula as such whereby a person is detained for so many months.

It is necessary to extend the period of detention to three years because there are a few hard-core addicts who have been sent to the drug rehabilitation centre two or three times. They are the people who need longer rehabilitation. Even if there are only five such cases, we still have to extend the period of their detention from two to three years to cover them, otherwise they will be excluded from this scheme.

I am glad to note that the Member for Mountbatten has taken a personal interest in the drug addiction problem in his constituency. A number of Members of Parliament have also taken an interest. I hope more Members of Parliament will take an interest in the drug addiction problem in their respective constituencies because that will help the authorities to do what they can to rehabilitate these drug addicts or ex-drug addicts.

The Member for Mountbatten says that his figures are different from mine. That, of course, is expected. They must be different because he deals with his own constituency only. My figures are for the whole of Singapore.

The Member also commented that some of the civil servants administering the drug rehabilitation scheme being too cautious might unnecessarily prolong the detention period. My answer is that it is not for the civil servants to decide. It is the Review Committee which is chaired by a qualified doctor which will study every case and make their recommendations. So efficiency, over-efficiency or cautiousness does not come into the picture. The experts will study every case and make their recommendations. On the other hand, may I also say that whenever the Review Committee considers cases for release, it must be satisfied that the person in question has been fully rehabilitated. Otherwise, it is wasting everybody's time to release a person who has only been half rehabilitated because he will go back to his old ways of addiction, and hence back again to the rehabilitation centre. It is not in the interest of the ex-drug addict to be released prematurely. I think this is certainly one of the points which the Member will agree with me.

As I have said just now, it is not an easy matter to cure a drug addict. I have explained the difference between physical dependence and the psychological dependence on drugs. After a period of treatment and rehabilitation in a drug rehabilitation centre, we can achieve some measure of success with his physical dependence, but it is his psychological dependence which must be completely cured before he can resist temptation. That is the most important factor and something that is intractable.

The Member for Mountbatten has rightly stated that if a person who is being detained for treatment in a drug rehabilitation centre is the breadwinner of a family, it will cause hardship to his family. Of course, it will cause hardship. But we are dealing with a social problem where the premature release of an ex-addict will not help his family because a relapse to addiction will make him a hard-core. May I point out that we are also fully aware of the fact that some of them are breadwinners and, therefore, as part of the rehabilitation programme in the drug rehabilitation centre, we are providing them with an opportunity to be employed. The object of this scheme is two-fold. First, it forms part of the rehabilitation process and, secondly, they can at the same time earn some money. That is the reason why we feel that the day-release scheme, which is a half-way house method of rehabilitation, will answer some of the points which the Member for Mountbatten has raised, namely, by allowing an ex-addict to go back to his former surroundings, he may very easily relapse. That is the reason why we suggest that before allowing him complete freedom to go back and move around as he likes, he should be allowed to enjoy half-freedom only for a period during which he could work and earn a wage in the same way as he would be earning if he is completely free. At the same time, during this period we will keep a check on him. This is what is, called a half-way house concept which many social scientists and social workers support as a good way to solve the problem arising from complete freedom as against a strict regime.

Next, the Member asked about the causes of drug addiction, and what are we doing to eliminate these causes, and are we treating this problem symptomatically? May I say this. Eradicating the causes of drug addiction is a vast problem. We are doing everything we can. No single body, the Ministry or Government itself, can completely eradicate the causes even though we know what they are. It must be tackled by the Government together with the people. One of the main areas is education. That is being done not only through the schools but also through SANA, their volunteer counsellors, and so on. I do not have to say very much about RTS and the proposed Singapore Broadcasting Corporation. I think my colleague, the Acting Minister for Culture, will reply when the Bill comes up for Second Reading later on. Whatever it is, as far as the Central Narcotics Bureau is concerned, they are faced with a problem and they are doing everything they can to solve it. We have managed to solve the drug addiction problem to some extent because we now have fewer additions to the pool of addicts. We are, therefore, concentrating on rehabilitation. Let me be the first to say that we have not exhausted our efforts at rehabilitation. That is the reason why we are trying to reinforce the existing programme by the addition of this day-release scheme.

Encik Sidek bin Saniff (Kolam Ayer): Mr Speaker, Sir, I appreciate the idea to prolong the detention of drug addicts in the drug rehabilitation centres so that they can be totally cured. I also appreciate the Hon. Minister's confidence in social scientists because I know of one Minister who has yet to appreciate it. I also appreciate the introduction of professional psychiatrists to look after the drug addicts in the final stage of rehabilitation. But I think there are more important or rather equally important factors to be considered by the professionals or those working in the DRC. Correct me if I am wrong, but I was told that most of the officers in the DRC are former prison wardens. With due respect to them, I hope the Hon. Minister will consider training these officers to understand the problem of drug addicts, especially during their first year of detention.

Mr Chua Sian Chin: Mr Speaker, Sir, I must clarify the points which have been raised by the Member for Kolam Ayer. First of all, I did not say that I have confidence or no confidence in social scientists. However,( do take note of what they say.

Regarding the wardens in charge of the drug rehabilitation centres, they are just the custodial staff. They just run the drug rehabilitation centres. They do not do any rehabilitation work. The rehabilitation work is done by our rehabilitation officers. We have rehabilitation officers, psychologists, doctors, and so on, put in charge of rehabilitation. They hold meetings, counselling sessions, and so on. In addition to these people, we have, in cooperation with SANA, invited their counsellors and voluntary after-care officers to come and counsel the drug addicts. In fact, SANA has been doing a good job in this respect.

There is no point in recruiting Government servants to do this. It is better to recruit people who like to do social work, people from the religious organisations, the churches, the Muslim, Buddhist, and the Hindu organisations and so on. SANA has been doing this. They have gone from one constituency to another to recruit them. If they have not gone to Kolam Ayer, I will suggest that they go there, and the Member for Kolam Ayer can help them to recruit these counsellors. It is better to get honourary members of the public who are interested in social work to counsel these addicts. That is also part of the rehabilitation scheme.

As I have said, we can break their physical dependence on drugs but it is very difficult to break their psychological dependence and they need constant counselling. At the same time, they also need encouragement and help from members of their own family. When they return home and members of their family can give encouragement and show understanding, they have a better chance of success.

I agree with the Member for Mountbatten, although not from a social scientist's point of view, that many of them have taken to drugs because of a bad family life, such as a lack of parental care when they were young. In this respect, we would also like to change the attitude of the parents and so help them on this difficult road back to society. 4.13 p.m.

Mr Seah Mui Kok (Bukit Ho Swee): Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to ask the Hon. Minister for Home Affairs whether the Government is prepared to engage a good number of those ex-drug addicts who have been cured and are released, to do work.

Mr Chua Sian Chin: Mr Speaker, Sir, we do not engage them on a regular basis. I think some of them have come back to SANA and volunteered to do rehabilitation work, which is much better. They have been through hell and they can tell what it is like to go through this difficult period in order to rescue themselves. SANA has done that. Many of them have been courageous enough to appear on TV to speak about their experiences. The programme entitled the "Long Road Back", was participated by a few of these ex-drug addicts who spoke about their experiences.

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 Chua Sian Chin].

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