The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Bhutan has always had a drug problem but we never truly realized its scale until His Majesty The King pointed to the urgency of the issue.
The drug problem was steadily but surely creeping into our homes, schools, workplaces, and families and it had taken quite a toll until His Majesty woke us out of our collective slumber.
There is no doubt that drugs is a national menace and we must fight it on all fronts.
Here, the first and most important place to launch a fightback is the family unit. It is noticed that the majority of drug abusers are either from broken families or their family did not supervise them enough and gave them all the money and freedom they wanted.
Families carry the most important responsibility of all as the root cause of substance abuse among people leads back to an unhappy home and trauma as a child.
Another important set up is in schools and colleges and among youths in general as many young people get into drugs due to peer pressure and its normalization.
We may not like to admit it but there is a drug culture which is also known as the ‘drug life’ among the youths.
It is important to communicate to the youth and let them know that drugs are not cool and that it has crushing consequences.
The third place for the fightback is in terms of de-addiction centers where Bhutan is doing a good job with many youths undergoing such programs.
The fourth place is in terms of curbing the easy supply of drugs and here the RBP has been doing a good job in cracking down on drug smuggling.
Going forward it will be important to ensure that we carry on reforming our laws and systems to adapt to an ever-changing challenge.
One such challenge is the growing congestion of our jails due to the large arrests. This is because anyone carrying above 21 SP+ tablets is considered a smuggler and gets a 5-year jail sentence.
However, in reality addicts can pop 21 pills a day or more and may be carrying it for personal use. We need to modify the law to ensure users are not imprisoned, while the real smugglers bringing in thousands of pills are punished.
“Addiction begins with the hope that something ‘out there’ can instantly fill up the emptiness inside.” —Jean Kilbourne”