New forums for lobbying

HCLU is now represented at two major decision making forums in the field of drug policy.

HCLU is now represented at two major decision making forums in the field of drug policy.
 

The Hungarian government recently made serious efforts to support the involvement of civil society to decision making in the field of drug policy: at the 50^th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs the Hungarian delegation announced that the government grants 50.000 USD to the Vienna NGO Forum in order to facilitate the 10 years evaluation of the implementation of the 1998 UNGASS Political Declaration. At the same time the government made a decree on the greater and meaningful involvement of civil society to decision making in Hungary itself. The decree offers the possibility for NGOs to elect four representatives who can participate as full members in the meetings of the Drug Coordination Commission, an inter-ministerial body coordinating the implementation of the National Drug Strategy (adopted in the year 2000). The head of our Legal Aids Service, Andrea Pelle was already an expert of the Legal Sub Committee of this Commission before. On 23 May the representatives of the Hungarian NGOs working in the field of drug prevention, treatment and harm reduction gathered in the building of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to elect the four delegates. Peter Sarosi, the Drug Policy Director of the HCLU was elected from 23 candidates to be one of the four delegates to speak out for civil society at the meetings of the DCC. The first meeting will be on 28 June in Budapest. HCLU attempts to use this opportunity to promote drug policy reform and strengthen the positions of harm reduction NGOs in the country. Mr. Sarosi is also the secretary of the Hungarian Harm Reduction Association, an umbrella organization of service providers and activists. The Association adopted Recommendations for Actions in its first national conference in October 2006. The Recommendations call for changes in the legislation and funding system in order to facilitate the scaling up of opiate substitution programs and introduce harm reduction to prison settings.

Another forum for lobbying is the Committee on Drug Affairs, which was set up by the Hungarian Parliament in March to discuss questions related to the harmonization of the Hungarian drug policy with European Union standards. The members of the Committee are members of the parliament and experts. Each political party can invite one expert who are not obliged to follow party directions but to advise MPs. The liberal party (SZDSZ) invited Peter Sarosi from HCLU to be one of the experts. The last meeting of the Committee (13 June, 2007) discussed recent controversies about drug legislation. According to the recent Criminal Code all drug offenders who were arrested because of simple possession of illicit substances for personal use can choose to participate in a 6 months alternative treatment or prevention program instead of incarceration. At the meeting the government presented the statistics about this “diversion into treatment” scheme. Data indicate that most offenders who participate in these coerced treatment programs are actually occasional marijuana users: 82 percent of them use marijuana as a primary drug and only 14 percent use drugs more often than one week. The expert of the HCLU said at the meeting that this system is not only controversial from the human rights point of view but it is also a waste of resources in a country where problem drug users have no access to life saving treatment forms like methadone substitution programs.

Law enforcement officials often complain about other weak points of the recent criminal legislation on drugs. Judges and forensic experts criticized the law because it requires offenders to undergo a medical examination to decide if they are drug addicts or not. Drug addicts face less severe punishment for the same offences. Experts say that they have no reliable guidelines and tools to identify the symptoms of drug addiction, which is actually a complex phenomenon with not only biological but also psychological and social factors. Therefore often there are contradicting professional opinions in specific cases. Another problem is that the Supreme Court of Hungary made a decision on 21 May which ended a long standing debate between the prosecutors and judges. According to prosecutors, if a drug user confessed that he or she has been using drugs regularly for a longer time, the authorities has to calculate the sum of the drugs consumed in this period, estimate the potency of the drug and prosecute the offender on the base of this accumulated sum of drugs. In practice this interpretation means that if a drug user confessed that he smoked 6 marijuana joints every day in the last 2 years, the prosecutor prosecutes the offender because of the possession of 6x365x2 marijuana joints. The judges rejected this interpretation of the law and took into consideration only the existing drugs which were sized from the person during the arrest and investigation. However, the Supreme Court decision recently affirmed the interpretation of the prosecutors. This can result in cases where simple users are prosecuted because of the possession of significant amount of drugs. Peter Sarosi from HCLU pointed out at the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee that the Supreme Court decision created a new situation with the urgent need to amend the drug legislation. He said the best option would be the decriminalization of drug users and abolishing the system of coerced treatment for non-problematic drug offenders. According to government plans the amendment of the Criminal Code will be discussed by the Parliament in 2008.