Gov’t shifts to ‘full spectrum solution’ to drug problem

From daily killings that left thousands of suspected persons who use drugs (PWUDs) dead, the government is starting to pivot to a fuller spectrum of solutions to the country’s drug problem as it acknowledged the need to treat it as a public health issue.

The “full spectrum solution” should involve not only law enforcement, but also medical, socioeconomic, and educational interventions,” Justice Undersecretary Jesse Andres told the Inquirer on Thursday.

Medical professionals, like psychologists and psychotherapists, Andres said, would be in a “better position” to handle the cases of PWUDs—the same recommendation of a newly launched rapporteur report by the University of the Philippines (UP) Institute of Human Rights.

During the opening ceremony of the drug policy and reform summit in Manila on Wednesday, Dangerous Drugs Boards Undersecretary Earl Saavedra acknowledged the need to reform the country’s 22-year-old Republic Act No. 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act, saying that there were gaps in the law caused by “institutional limitations or loopholes.”

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